


Took the Stars from Our Eyes and Made a Map

by WildWolf25



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: "Fade to Black" for Injuries, Alien Cultural Differences, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Blood, BoM-raised Keith, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cultural Differences, Ending is Fluff Fluff Fluff, Flashbacks, Fluff, Happy Ending, Keith has fluffy ears and a tufted tail, M/M, Minor Character Death, Moderate But Short Panic Attack, Phantom pain, Reunions, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, but not suPER graphic, moderate description of injury, well as slow as 5 chapters can be... Medium Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 12:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15729315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildWolf25/pseuds/WildWolf25
Summary: Shiro never understood the words that made up his soulmate mark -- “vrepit sa” -- but he knows that those will be the first words he hears his soulmate speak.  He tried to find his soulmate for years with no success; where some people claim to feel a sort of "pull" toward their soulmates, Shiro only feels himself drawn to the stars above.  But when he and his team are abducted on Kerberos, he quickly realizes that this phrase is far more sinister than he could have ever imagined. How is it possible that his soulmate is one of his captors, from a cruel and bloodthirsty species?Meanwhile, across the universe from Earth, Keith grew up in the shadows of the Galra Empire, orphaned young and raised instead by his mother’s resistance group.  He doesn’t know of any other half-Galra who look like him, or that have the words “I’m fine” tattooed on the inside of the wrist. Then, on an undercover mission of his own, he meets the Champion from the planet Earth, who looks strangely similar to his own features that many always considered ‘alien’.  And why would this human without a drop of Galra blood bear the vocal salute of the Empire on his wrist?  Why would he insist he is fine, when he is clearly hurt?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sheith Big Bang, in collaboration with [Prosaicwonder](http://vava-fett.tumblr.com) and [Auxaribyrd](https://auxari.tumblr.com)! The links for the pieces are included in the author's notes of the chapter they appear in. Please check them out! 
> 
> Thank you to [voltronisbae](http://voltronisbae.tumblr.com) for beta reading.
> 
> (Title comes from the song "Cosmic Love" by Florence + the machine)

Shiro was never sure what to make of the words on his wrist.  Obviously, they were soulmarks -- the first words he would hear his soulmate speak.  He knew that, in theory. Everyone had them, little marks that started out a bit darker than one’s skin tone and then darkened to black when they finally met their soulmate.  Even people who weren’t interested in romance had a platonic soulmate out there, a person who fit together with them perfectly. There were lots of ways people explained the feeling; completing each other, like two puzzle pieces fitting together, being made for each other, cut from the same cloth… or even something as simple as a best friend who could always understand them.  Every pair of soulmates was different, tailor-made to fit both, and everyone always found their soulmate in their lifetime. 

Just as there were countless combinations of words to make up an infinity of possibilities in language itself, so too were there countless soulmarks.  Some people had greetings, like “nice to meet you”, or “hey, how you doing?”. Others had seemingly random phrases from overheard conversations that made them do a double-take before realizing that the stranger on the street saying “piña coladas and pizza? Count me in!” was actually their soulmate.  Once in a while, a child had an expletive written on their wrist (much to the ire of their parents), only to grow up and realize that their soulmate was the person they just bumped into and made them spill their coffee with a shouted “ _ fuck _ !” (those ones always made for amusing stories to laugh about later as they sat hand-in-hand together).  And of course, love knew no boundaries, so sometimes people took up studying entire languages after discovering a phrase from a foreign language written on their wrist.  Shiro’s parents were like that; his mother had Japanese  _ kanji _ and  _ hiragana _ on her wrist, his father English letters.

Shiro guessed he fell into that last category, too.  His soulmark definitely wasn’t in English, at least. He had no idea  _ what  _ language it was, which only made it harder to figure out where he would meet his soulmate.  He distinctly remembered learning the alphabet song in kindergarten, and going home that afternoon to pull out his alphabet book and humming the song to himself as he tried to puzzle out the words that had always been on his wrist.  

_ “...Q-R-S, T-U-V… Vee… vee-ar-ee-p… va…  Mommy, what’s ve-rep-it esa mean?” He had asked. _

_ “What’s what mean?”  She had asked in reply, turning around to look at him from her place at the stove.   _

_ “This!”  He had held up his right wrist to show her.   _

_ She had tucked a lock of her long, dark hair behind her ear and peered at his soulmark.  “I think it’s ‘vrepit sa’, but I don’t know what that means. It’s not English.”  _

_ “Is it Japanese?”  He had sat up straighter.  His grandparents lived in Japan!  “Maybe ‘baa-chan knows my soulmate!” _

_ “Obaa-chan knows a lot of people, but not everyone in Japan,” his mother had reminded him gently.  “And that doesn’t look or sound like Japanese. Remember? You’ve got that nice calligraphy of your name on your wall that she made you.” _

_ “I guess it does look different…” He had admitted, thinking of the beautiful kanji hanging above his bed.  This looked like the same letters as his alphabet book and the letter posters running around his kindergarten classroom.  “What other languages are out there?” He asked her. _

_ She had laughed, a lilting sound like a chime.  “Oh, many, many languages. More than we can count.  But don’t worry, Takashi, you’ll hear it someday. Everyone meets their soulmate.”   _

But he never did.  At least not yet. Some people got lucky, and met their soulmates when they were children.  Some met them in school, others had to go away to college or move for their job before they came across their soulmate.  Some were well into adulthood before they heard that phrase they had always read on their wrist. With it being a different language, Shiro expected he would have to wait a while to meet this person; they could be on opposite sides of the world.  Still, it was hard to sit around waiting when he knew they were out there somewhere. He spent a couple of years in middle school getting really into linguistics -- as much as a fourteen year-old could, surrounded by dusty tomes of books explaining language and speech in words he had never heard even in English -- trying to figure out what language ‘vrepit sa’ was from, but after hitting too many dead ends, he gave up and figured he would just have to wait.  He grew despondent about his failure to locate his soulmate. Other kids from his class met theirs, especially when his small middle school fed into the larger high school. But still not for him. 

Even as the days lengthened and summer break began, Shiro grew more and more depressed.  He felt… lost, wandering like a broken compass spinning around on its dial without ever fixing onto that magnetic north.  Not even a family trip to visit his grandparents -- days that would usually be filled with road trips through the countryside, hiking in the mountains, swimming in the chilly Sea of Japan, visiting shrines and temples, and helping his grandfather with his garden -- not even that could cheer him up.  He moved through the activities like puppet on strings, going through the motions with a ghost of a smile that didn’t quite touch his eyes. He spent a lot of time looking out at the horizon, where the azure sky met the time-weathered mountains, and wondered what he was doing wrong, why he hadn’t found his soulmate yet, even when a good portion of his classmates had already found theirs.  Although he had hardly been religious in the past, that didn’t stop him from throwing a golden five-yen coin into every shrine he came across, clapping his hands and closing his eyes, and sending a fervent prayer out to the universe. He would take anything -- a sign that they were out there, a hint at the language… or, if the universe was willing, a chance to let him meet that person and hear them say the phrase that was written on his wrist.    

He found himself being drawn up to the roof a lot.  It was quiet, and the easy access from the guest room window and shallow slope of the roof made it the perfect place to stargaze at night.  His grandparents lived far out in the  _ inaka  _ \-- the rural countryside -- and with only a few lights from the surrounding houses and the blinking glow of fireflies drifting through the rice fields, the night sky was vast and black above him, unhampered by the dim orange glow that hung over his city in California.  That was always his favorite part of visiting his grandparents; there were more stars visible than he could ever imagine, and the sight never failed to steal his breath away. He had many, many childhood memories of looking at the stars with his grandparents and even searching the sky for UFOs with his cousins, armed with only a small telescope, a book of stars, and their own imaginations.  

Some nights, if the sky was clear enough and the family was rowdy and loud enough, Shiro’s grandfather would catch his gaze with a twinkle in his eye and a little jerk of his head, and the two of them would sneak away from the house and drive his little white kei-truck out along the dirt road between the rice field and the apple orchard.  After parking right in the middle of the narrow road, they would lay in the cramped flatbed of the truck and look up at the stars together. Sometimes his grandfather told him stories about the stars; Shiro’s favorite was the Tanabata story of the princess Orihime and the cowherd Hikoboshi, separated by the Milky Way except for one night a year when they could be reunited.  Sometimes the two of them talked about whatever came to mind, and sometimes they said nothing at all. The summer when Shiro gave up on locating his soulmate, more nights were quiet than usual. 

_ “It’s late.”  He said. “Maybe we should go back.”   _

_ “It’s not so late.”  His grandfather chuckled.  “Come on, Takashi-kun, let me be the old man here.” _

_ Shiro sighed and turned his gaze upward again.  It was a clear night, with almost no clouds. He didn’t want to be back at the house -- it was busy and chock-full of relatives stopping by to say hello while his parents were in the area -- but even coming out here hadn’t done anything to ease the restless feeling in his heart.  He couldn’t tell if all he wanted was to go to sleep or run as far as his feet could take him… anything to calm the restlessness that permeated his very soul.  _

_ “Do you know what we’re waiting for?”  His grandfather asked, his gravelly voice breaking the stillness of the night.   _

_ Shiro thought about it.  “For Aunt Yukiko to go home?”   He guessed.  _

_ His grandfather just laughed.  “No. Well, yes, but that’s not what I meant.  There’s supposed to be a meteor shower tonight, but they’ll only be visible late at night, when it is very dark.  Have you seen any?” _

_ “No.”  Admittedly, he hadn’t been looking.  He was too busy tracing the familiar constellations he had read about in his star book.  But surely, he would notice a meteor streaking past.  _

_ “Mm, keep looking.”  His grandfather laced his fingers together behind his head.  “They’re out there.” _

_ “Hm.”  Shiro wasn’t so convinced.  He hadn’t seen any, so far.  _

_ After another hour of silence, though, he sighed and spoke up.  “I don’t think the meteor shower is coming.”  _

_ “Sure it is, the newsman said so.”  His grandfather said, sounding self-assured.  “You just have to wait.  _

_ Another twenty minutes later, Shiro was starting to grow impatient.  He was tired, and all he wanted to do was go to sleep so he wouldn’t have to feel this unsettling sad-but-restless feeling anymore.  He stared up at Cassiopeia and fiddled with the wide leather bracelet he had taken to wearing on his right arm; bought on an impulse at a tourist trap that he couldn’t remember the name of, but it was just wide enough to cover those two mysterious words tattooed along his wrist.  He didn’t want to keep looking at the stars, he wanted to go home and crawl into bed. The sweet release of sleep was the only thing that helped him forget about his failure to locate his soulmate.  _

_ “Stop fidgeting.”  His grandfather took hold of the hand that was fiddling with his bracelet.  “Look at the meteors.” _

_ “I don’t see any meteors.”  Shiro huffed, frustrated.  _

_ “They’re there.  Faint, but there.”  His grandfather assured him.  “Have patience. Patience yields focus.” _

_ ‘Patience makes your back ache…’ Shiro thought resentfully, rolling the stiffness out of his shoulders from laying on the hard metal of the flatbed.  He closed his eyes; maybe he would just fall asleep here. But the ache in his heart -- no, it was probably just his back again -- seemed to grow stronger, and something compelled him to open his eyes again.  The stars swirled briefly above him for a moment before coming into focus, and when they did, they were just as still as before. Cold and distant and a billion light-years away.  _

_ Shiro sighed.  He was about to speak up again, and say he was going to just walk home, but suddenly a glint of light flashed in the periphery of his vision.  His eyes widened, focusing on the night sky above him… there! There was another one! They came slowly, but surely, little flashes of light amongst the pinpricks of stationary stars.  Sometimes they were too quick to catch proper sight of them, and sometimes they happened to zip across the very patch of sky he was looking at. With every passing meteor, Shiro felt his heart relax and grow calm.  He tucked his arm behind his head and felt the leather bracelet push against his wrist underneath his head. It was probably just a self-indulgent thought, but he had a feeling that maybe, just maybe, his soulmate was looking at the stars too. _

They stayed out there for a long time, that night.  The meteor shower lasted well into the early hours of the morning, but they climbed out of the flatbed and drove home around midnight.  When he woke up the next morning, the first thing Shiro saw was the bracelet on his right wrist, resting against the crisp white sheets.  He took the bracelet off and put it in his suitcase, leaving the words written across his wrist bare to the morning sunlight; maybe he didn’t have to give up just yet.  

Still, he felt his heart ache for something he had never had.  It was like there was a hole in his soul, the edges fuzzy and unclear, and no matter what he tried to fill the hole with, nothing fit quite right.  Within just a few days, he felt himself growing frustrated again.  __

He confided in his grandmother about his feelings, one afternoon when they were alone in the kitchen together.  She told him everyone had a red string connecting their pinky finger to that of their soulmate. He couldn’t see the thread, she told him, but his heart could, and if he followed his heart, it would guide him along that thread as it drew them closer and closer, until he could meet them and hear those words.  

_ “But it’s hard to wait,” he sighed, sliding some diced carrots into the curry pot.  “And how am I supposed to know what my heart wants? It just wants to find my soulmate, but other than that… no direction.”   _

_ “What’s that thing jii-chan always tells you?”  His grandmother asked, expertly chopping up an apple.  That was her secret, adding apples to the curry to give it a certain sweetness. _

_ “Fishing’s better in the morning?”  He quipped. His grandfather did say that pretty often.  She lightly batted him upside the head for that -- just enough to ruffle his hair, not to actually hurt.   _

_ “The other thing.”  She chided. “The one about patience.” _

_ He sighed.  “Patience yields focus.”  His grandfather usually said that in reference to some task they were doing, though, like waiting for the meteor shower.  Something he could see the goal of, whether it was waiting for the fish to bite or learning to drive his little old truck over the deep snow.  He didn’t see how such a mantra was related to this. _

_ “Patience yields focus.”  She nodded. “So just be patient, and listen to your heart when it speaks.  It won’t lead you astray. Your heart can see your thread, and it’ll lead you to your soulmate if you let it.”  She set the knife aside with a quiet clunk. “Yosh! Let’s get these apples in the curry, ndabe?”  _

So he tried to be patient.  He tried to listen to his heart, and follow the thread he couldn’t see.  Sometimes he would hike up the hill near his house back in California and he would spend hours looking up at the night sky.  His heart seemed happiest when he was doing that, just laying back with the stars spread out like a glittering blanket above him.  He knew space was supposed to be cold -- about -450 degrees Fahrenheit, in fact -- but it always looked warm. The impression puzzled him, because he knew, logically, that space was cold and devoid of air, a vacuum of silence and nothingness between empty celestial objects, no light and no life.  But the impression stuck, all the same. 

He held up his right wrist and was just barely able to pick the letters out of the darkness.  Tucking his arm behind his head with a sigh, he traced the pale spill of the Milky Way above him with his eyes.  Was his soulmate out there looking up at the same stars? Maybe they were on the opposite side of the world where it was daytime, or in the southern hemisphere where there were different constellations in the sky.  But high past the mountains, out through the atmosphere, the cosmic spread of the universe was still the same. Whatever sky they were looking at, past all the differences, it was still space, still the same universe.  And that thought brought him some sense of comfort.

His fascination with space had been growing for a long time.  As a child, he had spent hours laying on the rug in his dad’s study with a book of the night sky open in front of him, flipping through the pages and looking at how the constellations spun and changed with every passing month.  When he was old enough, he would hike up to that hill behind his house with the book in one hand and a flashlight in the other, a red anise-candy wrapper tied over the beam to dull the light so he could look between the pages and the night sky itself, picking out the constellations and wrapping his mouth around the long Greek and Latin names for them.  Orion was his favorite, and always easy to spot, even with the glow of the town below blurring out all but his belt most nights. It always felt like seeing Orion in the sky was like seeing an old friend. It was the first constellation he remembered seeing in that book, and it really did look like a man holding a shield and a weapon high above his head.  Before he could read the blurbs beside the constellations detailing their stories, little Takashi hadn’t known what a “club” was, but he thought it looked like a sword. Even after he learned that the Orion from the myths wielded a club, he still thought of it as a swordsman when he looked up at it -- a literal shining knight sparkling billions of lightyears away from him, sword and shield raised high and belt gleaming.  Whenever he found his friend the swordsman of the sky, he could always find any other constellation based on it. And it was there for him as he grew up, grew older. He wanted to be closer to the stars, close enough to touch them, even though he knew by their very nature such a thing was impossible. Still, he dreamed of finding himself suspended in space with stars all around him, and he felt a longing deep in his chest when he thought of that possibility.  He wanted to walk among the stars, the same stars he knew his soulmate had to be looking at, somewhere. 

He studied hard, often finding himself foregoing his nights of stargazing for nights sitting bent over his desk with equations and data and engine schematics open in front of him, pencil scratching and eraser scrubbing at his notebook as he committed everything about space travel to memory.  The long nights of hard work paid off, and he was accepted into the Galaxy Garrison as a pilot after he finished high school. 

He loved being a pilot; being in the simulator, and later flying fighter jets through aerial drills in the desert, it felt very freeing.  He liked the hum of the machine under his feet, the responsiveness of the controls in his hands… and he always felt a pull of sorts, drawing him to fly higher and higher, even though he knew logically that he had to stay on the course the instructors sent.  Once he became a pilot for real, though, he would get to go further, deep into the stars and past where any human had traveled before. Being selected for the Kerberos mission was a dream come true, even though it also came with a lot of hard work and dull report-writing and data intake drills before they could even touch the ship.  

There was a small part of him that hoped that being there, amongst the stars and with the whole planet in his view, would help him find his soulmate.  People claimed they were drawn to their soulmates in a way that couldn’t be explained, only felt, and a small, hopeful part of him wondered if he would be able to look down at the Earth and feel a tug toward the region where his soulmate was.  “Vrepit sa” had turned up too many dead ends, and he was desperate for some kind of hint, some small clue. It was a crazy dream, he thought. But maybe, just maybe, it was crazy enough to work. 

Finally, though, launch day came, and he was calling well-practiced commands back and forth between the two Holts as they lifted off and left the planet Earth behind them.

_ “Look at that, boys.” Commander Holt said.  “Isn’t that a sight…” _

_ They looked out the back window, and Shiro’s breath caught in his throat at the same moment Matt gasped aloud.  The Earth was small below them, looking like a model planet that could fit in the palm of his hand, all blue water and green and brown land and swirling white clouds.  It was a breathtaking sight that left him filled with awe, humbled by their small place in the infinite universe. _

_...But he felt no tug in his heart that could lead him to his soulmate.  The only tug he felt was onward, forward, and he figured that was just a nagging sense of duty to his job, so he turned back to the controls.  “Next stop, Kerberos.” He grinned.  _

~~~~~     

When Shiro came to, he felt groggy and stiff, like the very atoms in his body had been vibrating.  His memory came back to him in a rush of bits and pieces; collecting the samples… the huge ship appearing… the bright light… being drawn upward by some invisible force that shook the very particles of his body… 

He jerked his head up with a gasp, eyes flying open.  He was on his knees, helmet knocked off, in a dimly lit room.  A huge, hulking figure stood with its back to him, in front of a screen showing a shadowy face with glowing eyes.  They were speaking, their voices low and growling, but Shiro couldn’t understand a word they said. They couldn’t be… 

He was about to call out something when the shadowy figure on the screen said something and the man -- alien? -- in front of the screen tapped his right fist to the left side of his chest.  “Vrepit sa.” He growled.

Shiro froze, his blood running ice-cold.  That… no… it couldn’t be… But… but if it was, then maybe… 

Shiro looked to the side and saw Matt and Sam kneeling next to him, their helmets still covering their faces.  He couldn’t tell if they were conscious or not. Shiro turned back to the alien in front of the screen. “Please!  We come from a peaceful planet!” He didn’t know if they could understand him, but he had to try. 

The figure looked over its shoulder, turning a cold glare on him.  It said something, and one of the sentries behind them replied with “vrepit sa” just as Shiro tried again.  “W-we mean you no harm! We’re unarmed--” He cut off with a pained shout as the sentry behind him slammed the butt of its weapon into the back of his head, knocking him out.  

The next time he came to, it was to the sensation of being dragged with his arms above him, the ground hard under his back.  He peeled open his eyes and saw one of his crew -- was it Sam? Matt? Where was the other? -- walking behind him, hands behind his back and a sentry guiding him by the arm.  Shiro could see doors lining the hall, solid metal doors with barred slats at the top, through which bizarre-looking, colored eyes peered out at them. Some of them glowed. He heard whispers, but couldn’t understand any of the alien words.  He turned his head to the side and saw a window overlooking what looked like the inside of a beehive, the walls of the cavern lined with hundreds upon hundreds of little chambers. No… not chambers, he realized, eyes widening as terror gripped his heart.  

They were cells.  This was a prison.

The sentries threw the two of them into a cell, all of Shiro’s pleas falling on deaf ears.  Even when he banged on the door as they slammed it shut, they shouted something at him and pointed their guns until he backed away from the door.  Then they left, muttering something in low, guttural tones. 

“I don’t think they can understand us.”  Matt said, sliding his helmet off. His face was ashen and pale, his chestnut hair damp and sticking to his forehead.

“Where did they take your father?”  Shiro asked. 

Matt just shook his head.  “I don’t know.”

It must have been a holding cell.  They weren’t in there for very long -- perhaps only a couple of hours -- before a guard came to the door and unlocked it.  He barked something at them. Neither of them moved. He slammed the end of his polearm into the ground, purple electricity forking around the tip, and shouted the command again.  The two humans shared a look as they hesitantly got to their feet. The guard beckoned them forward, and after that it wasn’t hard to tell what he wanted them to do; he slapped high-tech handcuffs on them and poked them with his polearm, urging them forward down the corridor.  

The guard brought them to a small room with a door set against one wall.  He pointed at the door and said something, but when they tried to go through it, he grabbed Matt’s arm and stopped them.  He growled out a word and held up one large, claw-tipped finger. Only one of them could go in.

With Matt’s arm caught in the guard’s grip, Shiro guessed he was supposed to go first.  He took a deep breath and walked through the doorway. The door slammed shut behind him with a metallic  _ clang _ , and when the lights came up, he found he was surrounded by masked beings wearing long, purple-maroon robes.  A high, gravelly voice called out a command, the words seeming to come from all around him at once. Two masked figures grabbed his arms to restrain him, even as he struggled against them.  “Wh-what are you doing?! Let go of me!” 

They ignored him, and another masked figure hooked a small device around his ear.  There was a pinch like a needle that made him hiss and reel back, but moments later, the gravelly voice suddenly made sense.  “...well? Is the translator in place?”

“It seems to have taken successfully, Lady Haggar.”  One of the masked figures replied.

“What are you doing?  What do you want with us?”  Shiro asked, head spinning slightly.  He cried out as a hand slapped him across the face.  

“We are the ones who ask the questions here.”  The woman said, stepping out of the shadows. She was the only one not wearing a mask, but her hood was pulled low so that all he could see was her white hair, the sharp cut of her purple chin, and the glow of her yellow eyes.  “Who are you, and what were you doing in system X-9-Y?” 

“S-system…?”  Shiro tried to keep his voice steady, but it was hard when the masked figures moved around him, eyeing him like a pack of lions surrounding their prey.  “We’re scientists, explorers. We were on a scientific expedition to that moon. Please, we come from a peaceful planet--”

“What planet sent you?”  She cut him off. 

Shiro hesitated, not sure if he should tell her.  The last thing he wanted was to be responsible for an alien invasion of Earth.  He was silent for too long, though. She lifted her hand and his eyes widened as purple electricity crackled in the palm of her hand.  Her hand lunged forward and caught him in the center of the chest, the sensation ripping through him like a taser as he screamed in pain.  

“What planet sent you?”  She repeated, voice edged with danger.  “Tell me.” 

Shiro sucked a deep breath into his lungs, head swimming and body still shaking with electricity.  “...Earth. Th-the only known inhabited planet in that solar system.”

“I have seen the pitiful vessel you took to that wasteland moon.”  Her voice dripped with disdain. “Is that the best your planet’s space program can produce?”

He looked up, confusion making him speak more frankly than he probably should have.  “That… that ship is a modern miracle of engineering. It’s the most advanced spaceship ever built.”

“Hardly.”  She chuckled dryly.  “It is pathetic compared to the might of the Galra Empire’s achievements.  It seems you are a primitive species. I can already tell you are of no use to me. ”  She turned away and waved a hand at the masked figures. “Bring in the other one.” 

“Wait!”  Shiro pulled against the hands grabbing his arms.  “What are you going to do with us? If we’re of no use to you, just let us go back to Earth!”  

She laughed, high and cold.  “And let you run back to your planetary leaders with the knowledge of our existence?  I think not. The Galra Empire could crush your pathetic military with little effort, but it would not be worth it to drag our fleet all the way to your backwater planet.  Besides, you never know what may become useful later.” She nodded at the masked figures, and they ripped the translating device off his ear and dragged him away through the door as a few more shoved Matt into the room.  

Matt’s interrogation didn’t last much longer than Shiro’s had.  Soon enough, the two of them were being prodded back out of the room, but they didn’t go down the same hallway they had come from.  Shiro wished they had let them keep the translator; he had no idea what was being said when the guards barked orders at them in that guttural alien language.  

They were taken to another small, dim room, and once the door was closed, the guard pointed at them and said something.  Shiro met Matt’s eyes, anxiety palatable in the air. The guard growled and grabbed Shiro by the shoulder, yanking the zipper of his space suit down several inches.  He tugged the suit down his shoulder, then smacked him lightly on the shoulder and said that same command again, stepping back. 

“I think he wants us to strip.”  Matt whispered. 

Shiro swallowed thickly and pulled one arm out of his sleeve, eyes trained on the guard.  The guard leaned back against the door and tapped his polearm against the floor, letting out an impatient sound.  He wanted them to continue and be quick about it. 

The two of them stripped out of their heavy, protective space suits and then, at the guard’s insistent gesture, the under layer flight-suits.  Even their Garrison dog-tags were taken from them. Afterward, the guard pointed with his polearm toward a tiled room off to the side with spouts along the wall.   

“Y-you don’t think…?”  Matt looked at him, wrapping his arms around himself against the cold air.  

The guard made an impatient sound and pointed with his polearm again.  Shiro took a deep breath -- wondering if it would be his last -- and stepped into the room, Matt following behind.  

Cold water burst out of the spouts.  It was freezing and smelled slightly of chemicals, but it didn’t seem intended to kill them.  After about a minute, the water shut off and the guard called out another command, beckoning them out again.  They stood there, shivering, until he threw a bundle of cloth at each of them. It turned out to be clothes; a jumpsuit made of rough, dark purple material with a short, lighter purple over-shirt on top.  They put them on quickly, eager to have any sort of clothing to protect them from the cold. Their space suits were nowhere to be seen. They were ushered into a cell holding about half a dozen other prisoners, all of them different species of aliens but all wearing the same purple prison uniform.  

They had no idea how long they were in there.  All sense of time was lost in the small, dingy cell, with only the grunts and pained groans of the other prisoners to break the silence.  Days and nights bled together in an endless cycle of fear and pain. Sometimes they were taken out of the cell en masse, lined up, and marched to a huge arena to fight for the entertainment of their captors.  Some fights were between two or a few aliens of similar size, other times it was a slaughter between a small alien and a huge one. Sometimes they were given a crude weapon, other times they were forced to tear at each other with their bare hands like animals while the crowd screamed for blood around them.  

They slowly learned bits and pieces about the world they had found themselves in.  In the quiet dark of the communal cell, a few of the other prisoners spoke a few halting words and phrases that Shiro and Matt could understand, but how they knew was a mystery (although once, in a moment of wry hystericism, Matt suggested that aliens really  _ had  _ been to Earth and that Shiro now owed him twenty bucks for laughing at his UFO theories).  

From the other prisoners, they learned a few things:  The race of aliens that had captured them were called the Galra, and their empire stretched over much of the known universe.  Planets destroyed, loved ones murdered and enslaved… the pain was evident on the aliens’ strange features, even if their words were jumbled and hard to understand.  Shiro and Matt began to pick up on a few alien words and phrases, too; a ‘ _ quintant _ ’ was a daily cycle, marked by the fact they were fed once a quintant.  An ‘ _ uyhsepek _ ’ was the name of the strange, hooked blade they were sometimes given in the arena, and ‘ _ iubin! _ ’ was the word that one of the prisoners muttered like a curse whenever he felt the edge of the weapon and found it to be blunt and unsharpened.  Whether these words were Galran or some other alien language, they had little way of knowing. 

One phrase, however, stood out to Shiro among all the others.  ‘ _ Vrepit sa _ ’.  He heard only Galra use it, never the prisoners, unless they were forced to utter it at the point of a sword or barrel of a gun.  He wasn’t sure what it meant, exactly, but it seemed to be used in tandem with a salute where the Galra would tap their right fist to the left side of their chest while saying it.  Shiro’s heart jumped every time he heard it, and he would frantically look down to check the words on his wrist, begging the universe not to let those letters turn dark. The thought that his soulmate might be one of his captors was unbearable, and in the beginning, Shiro would sometimes lie awake looking at his soulmark in the dim purple light of the cell and wonder  _ why… _ What cruel twist of fate had brought him to this, where his soulmate was one of the aliens who beat him for sport, who shocked him when they felt he was out of line, who threw him in an arena with a vicious opponent and screamed for his blood?  

He never told Matt about his soulmark, even before they were separated.  In time, he stopped looking at the soulmark altogether. It didn’t matter if he met his soulmate here; if they were one of the cruel creatures who wanted him dead, then they were no true soulmate of his.  The words that he had always wanted to hear, that he spent years dreaming of, meant nothing to him now. They weren’t a symbol of love, they were a salute of hateful and cruel imperialism, and he wanted nothing to do with them.  Perhaps it was callous, but when he was tossed back into the cell shaking with adrenaline and covered in another alien’s blood, he couldn’t bring himself to care. He did what he had to do, and his heart developed a thick shell around it to try and protect what was left of his humanity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *quietly slips in my personal self-indulgent headcanon about Shiro's family being from rural northern Japan...* If you can guess the region based on the clues, you win a free apple, garlic, incomprehensible dialect, or 5-story-tall festival lantern float. :3c


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prosaicwonder drew some [gorgeous pieces](http://vava-fett.tumblr.com/post/177155402719/my-artwork-for-the-sheithbigbang-i-was-paired) for this chapter where Keith and Shiro meet. Please check them out!

The lights of the arena were blinding above him, throwing everything into harsh relief and making his eyes smart.  The blade was heavy in his hand, balanced poorly and just barely sharpened. In front of him, the alien that was his opponent had no weapon.  They were thin and pale, sallowness evident even on their blue-green skin, and their eyes were huge and fearful, mandible pincers opening and closing nervously.  This was different than all the other times he had been shoved into the fighting ring. This time, his opponent wasn’t mad with bloodlust and attacking him just as viciously as the Galra watching wanted.  This opponent was defenseless. He was supposed to slaughter them. He had been on the other end of this equation a few times before -- the clawless, flat-toothed, soft-skinned human intended to be brutally slaughtered by some armored, fanged creature with claws like daggers in a bloody display for the Galra -- but he had always managed to scrape out an underdog victory by the skin of his teeth and defeat them against the odds.  Enough times, apparently, to earn himself a spot on the other side. 

He couldn’t do it.  He couldn’t kill them.   

All around the arena, Galra grew restless and started shouting, impatient.  They wanted to see blood. 

“I can’t…” Shiro backed away from the alien, doubting they could even understand him.  “I can’t kill you.” 

“Please…” To his surprise, the alien whispered in broken fragments that he could just barely understand.  “Family dead. Join them, want to. Make quick. Please.” 

“No,” Shiro shook his head.  “I  _ can’t _ …”

“One must die.”  The alien tipped their head in the direction of the crowd, now roaring for blood.  “Or both die. You live. Be strong.” 

Shiro looked away from those huge, pleading eyes and saw the guards waiting at the gate raise their guns and aim at the two of them.  If one didn’t kill the other, both of them would would be killed. 

“Make quick.”  The alien said, soft voice sounding surprisingly at peace.  “Be with family, want to. Please.” 

Shiro drew in a deep, shuddering breath.  He gripped the weapon tighter in his hand, then swung it around and slashed the sharpest edge over the alien’s throat.  They let out a choked sound as they fell to the ground, almost lost in the roar of the crowd around them. 

“I’m sorry,” Shiro dropped to his knees beside them, suddenly feeling as if he had taken Atlas’s burden for his own.  “I’m so sorry…”

The alien smiled, its pincers moving weakly.  “Thank you…” A sigh left them, and their eyes closed as purple blood seeped out of the wound, staining the gray dirt floor of the arena.  

Clawed hands gripped him around his arms and forced him back, dragging him to his feet.  He stumbled along, going where they led him; it was useless to fight them. If he resisted, he knew all he would get is an electric zap to the side, strong enough to rattle his brain in his skull.  

They didn’t take him back to the cell.  Frankly, he wasn’t surprised. He had killed the alien in the end, but that minute of rebellion wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.  He had broken the rules, if only for a moment, and now he had to pay the price. They pushed him into a different cell, this one empty rather than overcrowded with prisoners.  He was stripped from the waist up, then his hands were tied in front of him and shackled to the wall. They pushed him to his knees, leaving his arms stretched above him. He only caught a glimpse of the weapon as the guard picked it up; with a thick handle and multiple whips, it looked like a cat o’ nine tails, save for the fact that it wasn’t made out of leather or rope, but some sort of unearthly, purple-glowing, wire-like threads, clearly alien technology.  

Shiro closed his eyes and took a deep breath, knowing that struggling wouldn’t end well for him.  He heard the heavy crack of the whip before he felt it, the pain following a millisecond behind. It hurt more than anything he had ever felt, wrenching a scream out of his chest.  The second blow landed almost on top of the first, the stinging burn unbearable. The chains binding his wrists to the wall above him rattled as he tensed and flinched, but the sound was drowned out by the sharp crack of the whip slicing through his skin and the screams that he couldn’t seem to choke back.  

Time stretched on forever and yet ceased to exist at all.  They kept going, until he was sure his back was flayed to the bone and his voice was cracked and hoarse from yelling.  His skin was slick with blood, sweat, and tears, and his knees and wrists were aching, but it was nothing compared to the raw, angry pain from his back, rolling in waves through his body.  He was dimly aware of the creak of a door opening, then the guard wielding the whip barked out an order. Another, quieter voice replied with a “vrepit sa” that Shiro barely noticed. The phrase meant nothing to him now, nothing but cruelty and pain.  He couldn’t believe there had ever been a time when he thought those words meant anything good. 

The cell door slammed shut, then there was silence.  Shiro didn’t bother to open his eyes; at some point, a cut he had sustained over his left brow in a fight a few days ago had started bleeding again -- he had a faint, pain-hazy memory of a particularly harsh strike from the whip forcing him to knock his head on the wall in front of him -- and he didn’t want the blood to run into his eye.  Whatever they were going to do to him, they would do to him, whether he could see or not.

He heard a quiet, metallic  _ thunk _ from somewhere off to the side, then a scuff as whoever had entered the room stepped closer.  Fingertips softly touched his cheek, and he jerked away from the contact reflexively, peeling his good eye open to look at the person who touched him.  This guard was smaller than the others, closer to Shiro’s height, so he must have been young. He was wearing a tarnished, slightly dented armor uniform similar to those the guards wore, with small, fuschia-glowing emblems carved into his chestplate to mark him as a low level guard.  This Galra was wearing a helmet that came down a bit lower than the others’, completely hiding his face instead of just the top half. 

The Galra watched him for a moment, taking in the tense set of his jaw and the distrust radiating off of him.  Then he lifted the wet rag he was holding to his face -- or the face of his helmet, at least -- and mimed dabbing at the eye of his mask, then pointed a claw at Shiro.  

Shiro swallowed tensely.  “I’m fine.” He didn’t want this Galra anywhere near his face.  

The Galra cocked his head and slowly reached out with the rag.  Shiro stiffened and barely let him touch him before twisting out of his grip, hissing as the motion pulled at the wounds on his back.  “I’m  _ fine _ .”  He repeated, baring his teeth at the Galra.  

The Galra sat back on his haunches, considering him.  Shiro glared at him. He didn’t like not being able to see this Galra’s face.  Even seeing just the other guards’ mouths gave him an indication of what they were thinking and if they were going to strike him or not.  

“You’re from Earth, aren’t you?”

Shiro blinked, stunned.  The Galra just kept looking at him.  It was hard, with the pain branching over his back, but Shiro managed to pull a coherent response together.  “They have some kind of file on us, don’t they? That’s how you knew that?” He narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

“No.”  The Galra said.  “At least, none that I have access to.”  

“Then… how did you…?”  Shiro was confused.

“Because,” the Galra raised his hands to grasp the bottom of his helmet.  “I’ve never met anyone who looked like me.” 

Shiro’s eyes widened as the Galra lifted the helmet off.  Underneath, he looked…  _ human _ , and yet at the same time, distinctly not.  Save for a mauve-colored slash along his right cheek and wrapping around to the back of his throat, his skin was a pale, warm beige rather than purple, with dark locks framing his face and curling up at the shoulders.  His eyes were unlike any Galra’s Shiro had seen -- yellow scleras with indigo-violet irises and dark, circular pupils, rather than flat glowing gold -- and they peeked out between his long bangs, watching Shiro carefully.  His hair was dark, black at first glance, but there was a sheen of iridescent purple to some strands, visible only when he tilted his head slightly. Perched on top of either side of his head were two large, fluffy ears, almost like the ears of a bobcat or fox mixed with a bat, that were colored deep violet at the base near his hair and faded to a brighter purple closer to the tips.  Something twitched behind him, and Shiro saw that it was a tail. A long, thin, dark tail with a tuft of purple fur at the end, the coloration matching his ears, that switched back and forth behind him as he watched Shiro.

“You didn’t answer, before.”  The Galra -- Galra? -- said, stating a fact rather than sounding accusing.  “You’re from Earth, aren’t you?” 

“I… yeah,” Shiro let his gaze rove over his face, so eerily human and yet very much not.  “Are… are you?”

“No.”  His tail tapped against the floor behind him.  “My dad was from Earth, though.”

There was something ridiculously casual about the way he said it, like it was as easy as saying “my mom is from Tucson” or “my family is from Canada”, rather than he was dropping a bombshell like that an alien had gone to Earth and procreated with a human.  Shiro didn’t know how to respond to that. “O...kay?” 

The Galra tilted his head.  “You’re hurt,” he said, like that was news to Shiro.  “They told me to clean you up and make sure you don’t die before your next fight.  Can I put this on you?” He held out a small yellow tube. Shiro couldn’t read the label; it could have said ‘fluorescent toothpaste’ for all he knew.  

“What is it?”  He asked, wary once more.  

“Healing…” the Galra trailed off with a frown, as if trying to think of the word.  “...Stuff. It-- you put it on wounds, and the quintessence heals them.” 

“Quintessence?”  He had never heard that word before.  

“It’s kind of like… magic.”  The Galra said. “The druids use it, pure, in big amounts.  Smaller amounts are refined and put in medicine for the soldiers, though.”  

Shiro considered it.  He could bleed out, or he could risk it and let a strange, half-Galra, half-human put magic healing gel on him.  He guessed he had been in worse situations. “Sure. Go ahead.” 

The Galra moved behind him, out of Shiro’s vision.  With the painful lashes running up his shoulders and a few even straying up the back of his neck, he couldn’t turn his head to keep an eye on him as he settled on his knees and got to work.  Shiro hissed at the first gentle touch of fingers to the open wounds, but the pain gradually faded to a warm sensation that just ached a little. He tried to let his shoulders relax as the Galra behind him worked the glowing yellow gel into each of the wounds stretching across his back.  The hands were warm and gentle, never pressing too hard on the quickly-healing wounds. When he was finished, he picked up his damp rag again and wiped as much blood off as he could, the cool rag a stark contrast to the fever-hot skin of his freshly-healed back. Shiro opened and clenched his hands, still tied together above him.  

“Your arms must hurt.”  The Galra said suddenly, getting to his feet.  

“...Yeah.”  Shiro said quietly.  He wouldn’t have admitted even a moment of weakness to any other Galra, but there was something that made him trust this one.  It could have been his appearance, but… it seemed like something else, too. Something deeper. It was probably all the pain, though.  Was probably messing with his head. 

The Galra unhooked his bound arms from the wall and helped Shiro to slowly lower the stiff limbs down.  Shiro grimaced as blood rushed back into the flesh, feeling like a river of pins and needles running through his veins.  The Galra knelt in front of him and picked at the knot with his long claws, frowning in concentration. His ears perked up when he finally got the knot loose, and a quiet laugh slipped out of Shiro before he could stop it.  The Galra shot him a questioning look as he unwrapped the rope, but Shiro shook his head. “It’s nothing.” 

The Galra shrugged and turned back to his task of unwinding the rope from around Shiro’s wrists.  The skin was marked with deep divots and lines from the rope digging into his wrists, and the Galra rubbed his thumbs over the lines to soothe them out.  He turned the wrists over and froze, his whole body stilling (even his tail stopped mid-tap, the tufted end straight up). Shiro grew uneasy the longer he was silent, and was about to ask him what was wrong when he suddenly looked up, eyes wide.  

“You…” the Galra reached down and unclasped his own right gauntlet.  “When I came in here, the guard told me to clean up the blood and the prisoner, and I said the vocal salute of the Empire, ‘ _ vrepit sa _ ’.”  He let the gauntlet fall away and peeled off his glove, and Shiro realized that he didn’t have claws at all.  He had short, blunt nails atop rounded fingers like a human, and his  _ gloves  _ had claws.  

Shiro’s breath caught in his throat.  “Yeah…?” No... surely not…

“And then I tried to clean the cut on your face.”  The Galra said, pushing up his sleeve at the same moment he twisted his wrist to hide the underside of it.  “And the first thing you said to me was…” 

“‘ _ I’m fine _ ’...” Shiro finished for him, remembering.  

“Yeah,” The Galra turned his arm over, revealing those very words running across his skin like a tattoo.  “ _ ‘I’m fine _ ’.”

Shiro’s breath left his chest in a rush, eyes riveted on his wrist.  The Galra laid their wrists together, and even as they watched, the lines darkened from pale brown to black and Shiro felt a warmth spread through him, like suddenly being submerged in sunlight after spending too long in the dark.  He heard the Galra in front of him suck in a sharp breath, and he somehow knew that he felt the same sensation. 

Their eyes lifted to meet each other’s, both of them wide and shocked.  “It’s you…” Shiro whispered, feeling like his breath had been knocked from his lungs.  

The Galra peeled off his other glove, gaze still fixed on Shiro’s face.  “I never… I never thought I would get to meet you…” His hands lifted, hovering uncertainly for a moment as his face twisted with conflict.  “Can I…?” 

Shiro nodded, and the Galra closed the gap between them, moving slowly and carefully as he enveloped Shiro in a hug.  

Tears pricked at Shiro’s eyes as he wrapped his arms around the other.  This felt so… so  _ right _ .  Like two puzzle pieces clicking into place and creating a bigger picture together.  He couldn’t tell if it was a soulmate thing, or because he was undoubtedly starved for touch after these long months, but warmth swelled in his chest and he gripped the back of the Galra’s --  _ his soulmate’s  _ \-- armor as he melted into the embrace.  “I’ve wanted to meet you for so long…” He whispered.

“Me too.”  The Galra said, carefully running a hand over the back of his hair.  He sighed, the breath tickling Shiro’s ear and neck. “But not like this.  I thought I would be able to go to Earth one day and find you, not… not find you in a prison ship, beaten half to death.”  He pulled back just enough touch the side of his face, as if feeling whether he was really there or not. This close, Shiro noticed that the few freckles he had dotting his cheeks were a light shade of lavender, and that the purple mark on his cheek was part of his skin rather than being a scar.  “What’s your name?” He asked.

“Shiro.”  He replied. 

“Shiro,” the Galra smiled as he tried out the unfamiliar name.  “I’m Keith.” 

Shiro blinked, taken aback.  “Keith?” 

Keith winced.  “I know, it’s a weird name.  Feels wrong on the ears…”

“No,” Shiro said quickly.  He took his hands in his own, squeezing them slightly.  “Actually, it feels good, to hear such a human name. I think it’s the best thing my ears have heard since being captured.” 

Keith offered him a shy smile.  He found a still-clean corner of his rag and lifted it to the cut over Shiro’s brow, dabbing gently at the blood that was going crusty on his skin.  His other hand cradled Shiro’s cheek so softly, and he looked at Shiro so reverently that it made his heart ache and leap all at the same time. He wondered, absently, how much of that was a soulmate thing and how much was his own being so starved for any kind of touch that wasn’t violent.  Either way, when Keith carefully cleaned the blood from his face and looked at him like Shiro was the moon in the sky, he couldn’t help but lean into the touch a bit. 

“Then, it’s nice to meet you, Shiro.”  Keith went on as he finished cleaning him up.

Shiro chuckled.  “Nice to meet you, Keith.”  His smile turned sad as he looked down.  “I only wish it was under better circumstances.  I could die any day now. But I’m glad I got to meet you, before I do.”

“No.”  Keith set the rag down and took his hands.  “You are not going to die here. I won’t let that happen, I promise you.”  

Shiro didn’t see how anything else was possible.  But there was a strong fire in Keith’s eyes, a determination hard as steel and twice as sharp.  Some small part of him wanted to believe the words. A foolish hope, maybe. But looking into Keith’s eyes, he couldn’t deny that feeling of hope.  It would be like trying to snuff out a flame with his bare hands.

~~~~~~~

They didn’t have much time together.  Keith had been sent there to make sure Shiro -- the Empire’s precious ‘Champion’ -- didn’t bleed to death, and to clean up the blood, but he was expected to return the prisoner to the cell as soon as he was finished with his work.  Keith confided to Shiro -- as he scrubbed the coppery-smelling blood off the floor and wall, while Shiro rubbed more of the quintessence gel on any other cuts and bruises he had -- that he was technically a guard, but his half-breed status meant he was more like a servant to the rest of the guards, usually saddled with cleaning things up and doing tasks they couldn’t be bothered to do.  But he promised to bring any food and medicine to Shiro that he could, even if it was just a little bit. Much too soon, Keith was putting handcuffs around his wrists (pausing to squeeze his hand reassuringly) and taking his arm to guide him back to his cell.

They formed a secret, careful alliance.  Shiro memorized the guards’ patrol routes and would sit in front of the cell door when he knew Keith would be walking past.  Keith would drop something -- a vial of medicine, a small chunk of hard bread, a strip of tough jerky… -- and kick it under the bottom grate of the door into Shiro’s waiting hands.  Shiro often ate a bit of the offering himself and then shared most of it with any of the other prisoners, the ill or the injured or the too-young or too-old. Their eyes would widen and they would ask him in hushed tones where he got such a thing, but Shiro just smiled and shook his head, tapping a finger to his lips.  If anyone found out he had someone helping him, he and Keith would surely be punished. Luckily, the other prisoners didn’t question it too much. They knew they were hardly in a position to look a gift horse in the mouth.

One night -- at least, he thought it was night, as the prisoners were settling down in their little huddles on the cold ground to go to sleep -- a different guard came to the cell and unlocked the door.  He barked out an order Shiro only half understood, but he did catch his prisoner number, so he cautiously got to his feet. The guard jerked his head, beckoning him forward, and Shiro felt his heart sink.  It wasn’t uncommon for the guards and even the officers and commanders to order a prisoner to their private quarters for the night. After all, as slaves, they had no power to turn them down. He had been dreading this ever since he started attracting attention in the arena (against his will, he argued, he was just trying to survive).  

Fear tangled into a dense, knotted ball in his stomach as the guard led him down the hallway and up an elevator to what looked like barracks.  By the time they stopped at a door, Shiro’s hands were shaking and sweaty, balled tight into fists like he stood any chance of defending himself against a commander intent on taking what they wanted from him.  When the door slid open, though, he found it was Keith on the other side, easily identifiable by his stature and the helmet that covered his entire face rather than just from the nose up. 

The guard said something to Keith with a smirk, and Shiro caught just enough of the sentence to tell that it was something about “have fun breaking this one”.  Keith shot back clipped words that amounted to a request that the guard keep to his own business, then the guard laughed and left. 

Keith tugged Shiro inside by the arm and shut the door, leaning back against it and taking off his helmet as he let out a deep sigh.  “I wasn’t sure that would work…” he muttered. “I didn’t know if I had the authority to request a prisoner to my quarters.” 

Shiro let himself take in a quick look at the spartan room -- a narrow bed, a desk, a chair, and a door against the other wall -- before turning his gaze back to Keith.  “Look, just because we’re soulmates, that doesn’t mean you get to just force yourself on me.” He told him, voice low and hard.

Keith’s eyes widened.  “Oh, no, that’s not-- I didn’t mean… No, I wouldn’t do that.”  He shook his head. “I just… I just wanted to talk with you. And maybe give you some food and a bed to sleep on.  I can take the floor.” He tacked on quickly at Shiro’s narrowed eyes. “Here, let me…” he waited until Shiro held out his hands, then he pressed his thumb to the Galra-tech sensor on the handcuffs.  They fell apart, and he set them on the desk. 

“Thanks.”  Shiro rubbed his wrists.  “You said you wanted to talk?  What about?” 

“Well, I have something for you.”  Keith opened the desk drawer and took out a small device.  It looked a bit like an ear-piercing gun. “Something I couldn’t just give you in the cells.  There is a universal translation chip inside, and you insert the chip under your skin around here,” he pointed to the side of his head, just behind the ear.  “I thought it would be useful, since you don’t know Galran and few here know Earthling.”

“English.”  Shiro corrected.  “Many languages are spoken on Earth.  English is one of them.” 

Keith blinked, eyes wide.  “Can you teach me about Earth?  I know a little bit, but not much.  I want to know more.” 

“Of course.”  Shiro smiled. He eyed the gun-like device warily.  “So… this thing is safe?” 

“Yes.”  Keith held it out for him to look at it.  

“Where did you get it?”  Shiro wondered, turning it over in his hands.  

“My… accomplice made it and sent it to me.”  Keith said, averting his eyes. 

“Accomplice?”  Shiro looked at him.

Keith opened his mouth, then closed it, looking conflicted.  He sighed. “It is very complicated…”

Shiro looked down at the device again.  “Will this help?” He didn’t know how Keith came to know English, but maybe he had taken it for granted so far.  If the two of them could speak unhindered, maybe Keith would be more willing to explain. 

“Perhaps.”  Keith said. “But it isn’t the language, it’s the matter as a whole that is complicated.  But this will definitely help you in your day-to-day life, I think.”

Shiro thought about it for a moment, then handed the device back to Keith.  “Go ahead, if you know how to do it.” 

Keith nodded and stepped closer.  He lifted a hand, pressing fingertips to the area behind and below his ear as he felt for the muscles and tendons there, then rested the flat tip of the device against his skin.  There was a sharp pinch, but it lasted only a moment before Keith was smoothing a thumb over the spot. “There. How’s that?” His speech sounded a little different than before. A little less rigid and uncertain; less like reading text from an old book and more conversational.  

“Seems fine.”  Shiro rubbed the spot and felt a miniscule bump under his skin.  “It just translates, right? No mind control?”

Keith laughed quietly, and Shiro’s heart melted at the sound.  “No mind control. Don’t worry. If it had been made by the druids, there might be a chance, but this one was made outside the Empire’s reach.”

“What do you mean?”  Shiro asked, confused.  

Keith’s smile slipped and he looked away.  “Like I said, it’s… complicated. I can’t tell you much.”  

Shiro supposed that was… reasonable.  They were soulmates, yes, but they had still led very different lives up until this point, and they didn’t yet know each other very well.  He decided to start elsewhere. “How did you learn English?” He asked.

Keith’s expression brightened a bit, ears pricking forward.  “My mom. She called it ‘Earthling’, though, or sometimes ‘human’.  She said it was important for me to learn about my dad’s planet. Even then, though, we didn’t have a lot of resources.  Sometimes the other--” he cut himself off, frowning for a moment and crossing his arms. “Sometimes I would be given books by… others.  Books from Earth. I read them to keep up my skills, even after… after my mom was gone.” His shoulders deflated again and he looked sad, and it tugged at Shiro’s heart.  He wanted to hug him and reassure him and chase away whatever pain he felt, even though he didn’t know what had happened.

Keith shook himself off.  “You’re probably hungry, right?  I snuck some food from the galley.”  He unwrapped a small bundle of food and laid it on the desk, and Shiro’s mouth watered at the sight; some prisoners had started fighting earlier that day, so the whole cell block was punished by withholding their daily meal.  Keith hopped up on the empty half of the desk and perched there, nodding at the chair. “You can sit down. I couldn’t grab much, but it’s something.” 

“Even something small is good.”  Shiro agreed, taking a seat on the hard, uncushioned desk chair.  “Thank you.” The prisoners were usually given a small bowl of grayish-purple, tasteless goo for their meal, but it seemed that the Galra gave their own actual food; a square of hard bread, some salted meat, what looked like a small plum, and some green cheese that he really hoped was  _ supposed  _ to be green.  

While he ate, he watched out of the corner of his eye as Keith took out a small dagger and held it in his hands, looking down at it with an almost forlorn expression.  There was some sort of cloth wrapped around the hilt, and Keith ran his thumb over the spot where the blade met the hilt, as if he was touching something reverent underneath the wrapping.  Before Shiro could ask about it, though, Keith slid the dagger back onto his belt and turned to Shiro with a question of his own. “Can you tell me about Earth? What’s it like? My mom said it was really red and dry and dusty, but I’ve heard it’s also covered in water.  Can you breathe underwater? I can’t.” 

Shiro chuckled at the flurry of questions, sitting back in the chair.  “Humans are terrestrial creatures, so no, we can’t breathe underwater. And there are parts of Earth that are very dry, like deserts, but also forests, plains, rainforests, tundra… all kinds of environments.”  

“Wow… all on one planet?”  Keith’s eyes widened. 

“It’s a pretty big planet.  Not anywhere close to the biggest in our solar system, but big enough for a huge variety of ecosystems and creatures.”  Shiro said. “Isn’t your planet like that, too?” Anything big enough to qualify as a ‘planet’ surely had to be big enough to have a variety of environments.  

“I’m not from a planet.”  Keith explained. “Much of the Galra Empire is based on ships.  They take over planets, take their resources and people, and move on to the next thing to conquer.  The Galra haven’t been confined to a single planet in millenia.” He paused, frowning at his knees in thought.  “I’m not sure where my mom and I lived, before. Somewhere quiet and isolated. It might have been a planet. I was too young to remember much.  And then after… I grew up on a, well… an asteroid, actually.”

“An asteroid?”  Shiro asked, curious.  “How?”

“Uh…” Keith rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable.  “It’s a pretty big asteroid. Is there anywhere on Earth that’s really dry and full of red rocks?”  

Shiro could tell that the question was a distraction from the asteroid thing, but he chose not to point it out.  “Well, I’m sure there are lots of places.” He said slowly, thinking about it. “Off the top of my head… the American southwest comes to mind.  Much of it is desert, and a lot of the rocks there are dry and reddish-orange.” He smiled to himself, thinking back on the nights at the Galaxy Garrison when he and Matt would sneak up to the roof to look at the stars spread out over the inky sky that was always so clear in the desert.  

“I wonder if that’s where my dad is from.”  Keith mused. 

“Maybe.”  Shiro looked at him.  “Do you want to go see him?”

“I did.”  Keith propped his foot up on the desk and rested his chin in his hand, sighing.  “I’ve never met him -- Mom left Earth before I was born, and I was just a kit when she died.  So yeah, I always wanted to meet him. And find you.” He held up his wrist with a smile. “Managed to do one of those things without actually going to Earth.”       

Shiro turned sideways to lean his arm on the back of the chair.  “When I was younger, I used to like looking at the stars, because I thought there was a chance my soulmate might be looking at them too.”  He smiled. “Little did I know, you were  _ among _ the stars.”  

Keith’s face fell.  “You… did you join your planet’s space exploration program because of that feeling?”

“It was a factor.”  Shiro admitted.

“Then… you were captured because you were looking for me…”  Keith said quietly.

“No.”  Shiro shook his head and reached for Keith’s hands.  “I think I would have been drawn to being a space pilot, even without a soulmate.  I still would have been picked for the Kerberos mission. We went there because we were looking for ice samples.  That Galra ship showing up and capturing us was an accident, just a coincidence.” He squeezed his hands. “If there is a silver lining to any of this, though, it’s that we were able to meet.  Whatever else happens to me, I’m glad I was able to meet you, Keith.”

Keith smiled softly and got down off his perch on the desk to envelop Shiro in a hug.  “I’m glad I was able to meet you, too.” He whispered. 

~~~~~~~

After Shiro finished eating, Keith told him he was free to use the shower and get clean, adding quickly that the bathroom door locked from the inside.  The bathroom was tiny, about the size of that on an airplane, with an even smaller cubicle shower tucked in the corner. Shiro made sure to lock the door before stripping off his jumpsuit and stepping into the shower stall.  He turned the dials, and the water that burst out of the showerhead was cold at first but quickly warmed up, unlike the freezing showers the prisoners were sometimes given after especially bloody battles. Really, those were more akin to being sprayed down with a power hose, so even though the water pressure in Keith’s shower was a little harsh, it was nothing compared to what Shiro was used to.  He washed himself quickly out of reflex, as prisoners weren’t given much time at all to clean themselves, then remembered where he was and slowed down, scrubbing his fingers through his hair to free it of the dirt and dried blood that built up at the roots between infrequent washing. He let himself just stand in the warm water for a few minutes before shutting it off and stepping of the small shower, feeling refreshed and as if he had just indulged in a luxury rather than completed a simple task of basic hygiene.  After drying himself off with the threadbare towel Keith had given him, he pulled on his jumpsuit, regretting that he couldn’t wash that, too. He rubbed the towel over his hair to dry it as best he could, then hung the towel up on the hook on the back of the door before leaving the small bathroom. 

When he left the bathroom, he found Keith sitting on the bed with his back against the wall, tail tapping lazily near his knee in a way that reminded Shiro of a cat.  Keith was holding a small, rectangular device in his hand when Shiro opened the door, but he quickly shoved it in his pocket and it was gone before he had even stepped over the threshold.  

“Thanks for letting me use your shower,” Shiro said, combing his fingers through the longer strands of hair of his bangs.  “If you were doing something, don’t let me interrupt you.” 

“I wasn’t doing anything.”  Keith glanced at him, then did a double-take and stared at him.  What, did he have leftover soap in his hair? 

“You sure?”  Shiro pushed his fingers through his fringe again just to check.  Nope, no soap. But Keith was still looking at him weird, kind of like he was amazed at something, but Shiro couldn’t imagine what.  He sighed and dropped his hand, letting his bangs fall over his forehead again. “It’s just, you looked like you were doing something, when I came out.”

“Oh.  That was, uh, just… work.”  Keith looked away from him. 

“Important things for the Galra Empire?”  Shiro asked wryly. 

Keith snorted in derision.  “Not quite.” 

Shiro watched him a few moments longer, but when it was apparent Keith wouldn’t say anything else, he shrugged. “Well, I can’t read Galran, you know, so it’s not like I’ll try and read over your shoulder or anything.”  

“That’s not--” Keith cut himself off.  He looked to be at war with himself for a minute, then sighed.  “Look, don’t tell anyone you saw me with that communicator, okay?  If you do, there’s a good chance I could get in very,  _ very _ big trouble, and then you can say goodbye to extra food and medicine and chances to shower.”

Shiro regarded him evenly, wondering why Keith’s tone had suddenly seemed to veer toward something like hostility.  “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.” 

Keith watched him carefully for several long moments, as if searching for something in Shiro’s face.  Whatever it was, he must have found it, because eventually he pulled the device out of his pocket again.  “Fine. I’m trusting you. Don’t make me regret it.” He turned the device back on, and the screen glowed to life.  He tapped away at it, thumbs flying over what looked like a keyboard of Galran letters, and a series of numbers began to fill the screen.  

Mindful of his promise not to read over his shoulder -- not like he could, anyway -- Shiro turned away from him and took a seat on the desk chair again.  Keith had somehow gotten rid of the empty plate and cup from the meal he had given Shiro, so the desk was bare save for Keith’s helmet that was set on top of a small stack of books.  Two of them, Shiro hardly noticed, as the titles were in Galran, but the sight of the other two caused a funny jolt in the pit of his stomach when he recognized them. He remembered Keith briefly mentioning that he had some books in English that he used to keep up his skills, but the other one… Shiro slid it out from underneath the helmet and looked down at the cover, then up to where Keith was still tapping away at his communicator.  “Why do you have a book in Japanese?” He asked, bewildered. 

Keith went still and looked up, eyes sliding from Shiro’s face to the book and back.  “You can read that?”

“Yeah.  It’s another language from Earth.  One my grandparents and about half of my family speak.”  Shiro said. “Where did you get this?” 

Keith turned off his communicator and slid it back in his pocket.  “One of my… friends, gave it to me. He found it at a swap moon. He said it was from Earth, but I didn’t know whether to believe him or not, because it didn’t look like any of the Earth language I’d ever seen.”

“Japanese is pretty different from English.”  Shiro opened the book and flipped through it. It looked old, done entirely in woodblock prints and careful calligraphy on heavy paper pages.  He found there were tiny English letters crowded into the margins, each mark made as light as possible. They looked almost like an attempt to translation the book’s text, except that they were completely wrong… “Did you… write your own version of Tanabata?”  He asked, looking up again. 

Keith frowned, his right ear twitching as if he was embarrassed but trying to hide it.  “Of what?”

“This story.  It’s the story of Tanabata.”  Shiro said, flicking through the pages.  “The story of the Princess Orihime and the cowherd Hikoboshi, symbolized by the stars Vega and Altair, and how they’re separated by the  _ Amanogawa _ , the Milky Way Galaxy, every night except for the seventh day of the seventh month.”  Looking at the words crammed into the margins of the pages, Shiro saw that Keith hadn’t given them names other than ‘the girl with the fancy hair’ and ‘the hat boy’.  Well, he supposed he could see where he got that from, given their depictions. 

Keith slid off the bed and stepped closer, his eyes wide.  “Can you… read me that story? The way it really is? I’ve always wondered what those pages say.”  

Shiro smiled.  “Of course. It’s my favorite festival.”  

Keith started to reach out, hesitated, then took Shiro’s hand, holding it between his own.  Shiro let him lead him back to the bed and took a seat on the end of it, Keith beside him. Opening the book to the first page, he took a moment to quickly read the Japanese text, just to be sure he was telling the story correctly, then translated it into English for Keith (he wondered, briefly, if the translator Keith had given him meant that Keith was hearing the story in English or Galran).  As he read, he pointed out certain things about the pictures and paused whenever Keith jumped in with a question. Some things, like cows and bamboo, Keith had never heard of, and Shiro explained them as best he could. He enjoyed hearing how Keith had interpreted the story on his own, some things wildly different and others startlingly the same. Keith objected strongly to the part about the Sky King separating the two lovers and forbidding them to meet.

“That’s stupid.”  Keith frowned. “He was the one who set them up in the first place, and now he’s mad because they’re too busy being in love to do their jobs?”  

Shiro shrugged.  “Everything in moderation, I guess.  Lots of stories have that as the lesson.”  

Keith let out a  _ hmph  _ and leaned against Shiro’s arm.  “So do they overthrow the king and start a new era where they can be in love in peace?”  

Shiro laughed, charmed by the prediction and the warm weight of Keith leaning against him.  “No. Orihime cries so much that the king is moved by her tears, and he lets the two lovers meet on the seventh day of the seventh month, but only if she worked hard and finished her weaving for the year.”  

“That’s cheap.”  Keith pouted. “They should overthrow that king.”  

Shiro chuckled and turned to the next page.  “But the first time they tried to meet, they couldn’t cross the river of stars because there was no bridge.”

“How is a bridge supposed to help them?”  Keith asked. “It’s space. You need some kind of ship or flight pod.”  

“They didn’t have one of those either.”  Shiro reached up to rub the top of his head between his ears to muss his hair up playfully.  “And when this story was created, people knew nothing about space travel. As far as they knew, the only beings who could travel amongst the stars were gods.”  

Keith sighed and shook his head.  “Who doesn’t know about space travel…” 

Shiro suppressed a smile and turned to the next page.  “Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies -- a kind of bird, a winged creature from Earth -- came and made a bridge so she could cross the river.”

Keith whistled lowly.  “Strong creatures, then.”  

“Or magical.”  Shiro shrugged.  “But, if it rains on the seventh night of the seventh month -- Tanabata -- then the magpies can’t come and the two lovers have to wait until the next year to see each other.”

“A little rain shouldn’t stop them.”  Keith huffed. “Not if they’re strong enough to carry a girl across a river.”

“Well, that’s just how the story goes.”  Shiro said, closing the book. 

“Wait, that’s it?”  Keith asked. “No, that ending isn’t okay.  I don’t like them being separated by the stars like that.”

“They still get to meet.”  Shiro pointed out.

“Once a  _ year _ .”  Keith said.  He shook his head.  “No. I’m changing the ending.  They overthrow the king and get rid of his dumb rule, or she just crosses the river and doesn’t come back, and they go live together in exile.”

“Exile?”  Shiro’s eyes widened.  “Really?”

“Exile is hard, but it’s not bad if you are with other exiled people.”  Keith shrugged. “Especially if you love them. They shouldn’t just give up and let the king make up dumb rules like that.”  

Shiro ran a thumb over the embossed kanji on the cover.  “I think… the message of the story is to be patient. Even if it seems like things are hopeless, be patient and work as hard as you can, and the universe will reward you by making something good happen.”  He opened to the page featuring woodblock carvings of bamboo trees laden with strips of colored paper blowing in the wind, a sight he had seen several times in his grandparents’ town. “During the festival, we write our dearest wishes on strips of paper and tie them to a tree, and the wishes are carried out into the universe, where, hopefully, they will come true, if we are patient and diligent enough.”

Keith looked down at the picture.  “Still sounds like a lot of work for a small reward.”  He grumbled.

“Is the chance to see your lover really such a small reward?”  Shiro asked. 

Keith thought about it in silence for a few minutes.  “...I guess not.” He sighed. “They should still run away together instead.”  

Shiro chuckled.  “Maybe one day, they will.”  He closed the book again and handed it to Keith.  

“Thanks, for reading it.”  Keith said, taking the book in his hands.  “I’ve always wondered what it really said. Even though the ending needs work.”  

“There’s nothing wrong with writing your own ending.”  Shiro said. “After all, you’re not Orihime or Hikoboshi; you can decide your own ending for your story.”  

Keith glanced at him out of the corners of his eyes.  “Yeah…” He slid off the bed and placed the book back on his desk, then turned to Shiro again.  “It’s getting late, so we should probably get some sleep. You can take the bed, I’ll take the floor.  The bed’s not the best, but it’s better than the floor of the cells.”

“You’ve already done so much for me,” Shiro shook his head.  “I can’t--”

“Take the bed, Shiro.”  Keith took his hands and squeezed them slightly.  “Please. I get it every other night.”

Shiro sighed, relenting.  He did really want to sleep in a real bed again, if only for a night.  “Okay. Thank you.”


	3. Chapter 3

Shiro may have accepted the bed, but since Keith didn’t have an extra pillow or blanket, he forced Keith to take those at the very least.  The bed alone was more comfortable than the cold floor of the prison cell. Keith slept on the narrow space of floor beside the bed, and in the morning, he gently touched Shiro’s arm to rouse him and apologized for waking him so early, saying “I need to take you back before I start my duties, or I might get in trouble.”  

It wasn’t the last time Shiro stayed the night with Keith.  They couldn’t do it often, as they didn’t want to arouse suspicion or incur the wrath of higher officers who might wonder what about the Champion was bringing him to the bed of a lowly guard so often.  Shiro knew the other prisoners made assumptions, but what they did behind closed doors was a secret known only to them. Usually, Keith would come collect him from the cell himself, brusquely ordering him to get up and leading him away by the arm with his hands secured in handcuffs.  Once inside Keith’s room, though, the handcuffs came off and his demeanor flipped, and he was nothing but kind to Shiro as he let him use his shower, gave him any food he managed to scrounge up, and talked for a little while before insisting he take the bed for the night. Keith really was eager to hear about Earth and often asked him questions about the planet he had only read about in books and heard about from his mother.  Shiro was just as eager to hear about alien culture and how Keith had grown up, but Keith seemed oddly hesitant to speak about certain things, sometimes circumventing the question and giving Shiro a roundabout answer instead. Where he had grown up, who had raised him after his mother died, and how he came to work on the prison ship were such taboo questions, Shiro noticed, as were any questions about the communicator Shiro sometimes noticed him using.  

Outside of Keith’s room, Shiro started noticing him around more, though they both kept their distance.  If anyone found out the truth of their relationship, they would surely be separated. Keith, a lowly, half-breed guard, wouldn’t have enough power to stop one of the higher-ups from separating them if they thought they were getting too close.  But Shiro noticed that Keith seemed to be volunteering for medical duty following Shiro’s fights, and he was there the moment Shiro stumbled into the dark tunnels underneath the arena, waiting to take him to be treated with a hand gripping his arm in comfort rather than restraint.  On the occasions when he was allowed to patch Shiro up himself, his hands were always gentle, and when he had to take him to the medical team for greater injuries, he made sure to watch the doctor for any sign that he was hurting him, always ready to step in with some made-up story about how the commanders wanted the Champion healed properly.  Most of his injuries, though, they just let Keith heal superficially with that quintessence gel. The Galra wanted him in good condition to provide them with entertainment, but they didn’t actually care for his well-being beyond that. Even when Shiro sustained a set of deep gashes clawed into his side, the head medic determined the gel would be enough.  Shiro grit his teeth and fought to keep his breathing steady as Keith spread the quintessence-infused gel over each gash as carefully as he could, a cloth pressed to the others while he worked on them one at a time.

“How many times are you going to have to save me like this?”  Shiro wondered aloud, just a touch wrly.

Keith lifted his eyes from the wounds to meet Shiro’s.  His lips curved up into a small smile and his eyes were warm, but also steely with determination.  “As many times as it takes.” He told him. And something in Shiro believed him, unquestioningly. Maybe it had to do with how Keith  _ had  _ saved his life several times already, not just from injuries but also in giving him a reason to keep going, to  _ keep living _ , even in this hell he had found himself in.  Maybe it was just the trust that had been building and deepening between them.  Maybe it was something more, something that had been woven into their DNA -- their very souls -- since the beginning of their existences.  

After too many nights of Keith sleeping on the floor while Shiro took his bed, Shiro took the plunge for the next step.  He grabbed Keith’s arm when he turned away to lay down on the ground. “What if we just share the bed? I think we could both fit.”  He suggested, heart pounding in anticipation of the answer. 

Keith stared at him for a moment, then his features eased into a smile.  “Yeah. I think so, too.” 

That night, they fell asleep with as much space between them as possible, Shiro crowded up against the wall and Keith balanced precariously on the edge of the bed.  They woke up the next morning with Shiro pressed to Keith’s back, arms around his waist. It was a rare instance of Shiro waking up before Keith, and he thought about moving away from him.  But then he noticed Keith’s hand reaching back for him, fingers brushing Shiro’s arm and wrist turned just perfectly to see the black soulmark inked into his skin;  _ I’m fine _ .  

Shiro sighed -- lips curling into a smile when Keith’s ear flicked in his sleep at the soft puff of air on the back of his neck -- and settled down to steal a few more minutes of precious sleep, just the way they were.

After that, it became a given that they would share the bed.  They grew more comfortable with each other, physically, and oftentimes their discussions of Earth and alien culture took place with them lounging on the bed, pressed close and arms and legs tangled together.

“So do Galra not usually have soulmates?”  Shiro asked one night while the two of them were wrapped up together on the bed, heads inches from each other on the pillow.

“Not quite.  At least, not in the same way humans do, with the soulmarks.”  Keith said, lifting his wrist in explanation. “My mom was born with her soulmark, and she said no one knew what it was, they just assumed it was some kind of birthmark.  Just some weird, dark purple marks on her wrist that kind of looked like alien words. Even when she learned what they said, she couldn’t figure out what they meant. Then she went to Earth on a mission, and her pod malfunctioned and crashed in a dry, red desert.  That’s when she met my dad.” He chuckled. “And she knew it was him when he said ‘ _ wow, either I’m really drunk, or I was right about the aliens… _ ’ and she just said ‘ _ what? _ ’  Then both of their soulmarks turned black, and they just knew; she said it felt warm, and like something was clicking into place that she hadn’t known she was missing.  It was a strange feeling, she said, but weirdly familiar. It helped when he explained it, though. Apparently she pulled her knife on him until he told her what was going on.”  He laughed. “I used to ask her to tell me that story a lot, almost every night before going to bed. I haven’t thought about it in a long time, though.” 

“What’s a beautiful love story without cross-species cultural confusion and knives?”  Shiro asked, smiling. 

“Kinda like us, in a way.”  Keith slid closer and took his hand, weaving their fingers together between them.  His smile slipped. “Except you were actually hurt.”

“Not by you, though.”  Shiro reminded him. Keith hummed quietly and looked down at their joined hands, thumb stroking over his skin.  Shiro tilted his wrist to see the soulmark on his wrist, now ink-black. “Actually, for a while, I really hated my soulmark.”  He admitted quietly. “I grew up hearing how they were a sign of love, but then when the Galra captured me… I found out what that phrase meant, and I started to hate it.  All the violence and pain that phrase has brought… it’s hard, even now, not to associate it with hatred and cruelty.” He sighed and pulled Keith closer. “I wish soulmarks could tell you the first thing your soulmate says  _ to you _ , not the first thing you  _ hear _ them say.”  He whispered, closing his eyes.  

Keith turned his wrist over and rubbed a thumb over the letters softly, like that alone could rub them away.  The two of them laid in silence for a couple of minutes before Keith spoke up again. “You know, Galran is traditionally read right to left, not left to right.”  He said, and Shiro opened his eyes to see him skim a fingertip over the words, right to left. “So, this wouldn’t be  _ vrepit sa _ , but  _ as tiperv _ .”

Shiro gave his wrist a flat look.  “Great. Now I also have ‘perv’ in my soulmark.”  That did not make it better.

“Hang on,”  Keith traced a finger over a series of small scars he had gotten during one of his matches.  A long one cut across the p, another shorter one just touched the end of the v, and one that had needed stitches had pulled the v and the r closer together.  “These scars change the way the letters look. And reading it right to left, it almost looks like it says  _ as’tihem _ .”

It was a stretch, but with the scars there and the small brown birthmark he had always had hovering just between the two words, he could sort of see what Keith meant.  “Does that word mean something?”

“It’s an old Galran word for someone’s mate.”  Keith smiled and lifted Shiro’s wrist to his lips.  “It means ‘ _ beloved _ ’.”

Shiro felt his chest flood with warmth, and he let himself smile in return.  “I like that much better.”

“Me too.  My  _ as’tihem _ .”  Keith wrapped an arm around his waist.  “It’s a little outdated -- I’ve only heard it used between a couple of my… friends.  They’re mates. They sort of raised me, after my mom died. The one of them used to check the other’s ear-fur for space mites, and he would whisper that word to him when they thought I wasn’t listening.”  

Shiro was surprised; that was probably the most Keith had opened up to him about that unknown window of time between when his mother died and when Keith met Shiro.  And there it was again, that hesitation before the word ‘friends’, like he was stopping himself before saying something he shouldn’t. Before Shiro could ask him more about it, though, Keith spoke up again.

“Does everyone on Earth have ears like yours?”  Keith asked. It might have just been a distraction from the previous topic, but Shiro didn’t want to pry too much.   

Shiro’s lips twitched up, amused.  “Yeah, this is what human ears look like.”  

“Can I…” Keith lifted a hand, then hesitated.  “Can I touch them?” 

“Sure.”  Shiro chuckled.    

Keith reached out and lightly traced around the shell of his ear, barely touching his fingertip to the skin.  “They’re such a strange shape… so small and flat against your head.” He rubbed the soft earlobe between his finger and thumb.  “What’s this scar here?” 

Shiro laughed.  “I pierced my ears in high school.  Had to let the holes close up when I got into the Galaxy Garrison, though.”

“You  _ pierced  _ it?”  Keith gave him a horrified look.  “ _ Why _ ?”

“I thought it made me look cool.”  Shiro shrugged. “It’s a human beauty thing.  Sometimes we pierce our ears and when the holes heal, we can put jewelry through them.”  

Keith wrinkled his nose, his own ears flattening in distaste.  “That sounds painful.” 

“It doesn’t hurt as much as it sounds like.”  Shiro said. 

Keith turned his attention back to Shiro’s ear, running a finger along the shell once more and lightly pinching the cartilage between his fingers before drawing his hand back.  

“Can I touch your ears?”  Shiro asked. They looked so soft and fluffy… 

“That’s fair.”  Keith chuckled. 

Shiro smiled and reached up to just barely touch the little tufts of hair at the tip of the ear.  The ear flicked and Keith made a face at him. “Don’t  _ tickle _ it.”  

“Sorry,” Shiro ran his finger down the length of the edge.  It was soft, and felt like warm velvet. There was a small nick on the outer edge of one of them, like a small triangle of the thin flesh had been torn out.  “What’s this from?”

Keith looked down, tail curling around his waist and tapping against Shiro’s hip.  “Got in a fight.” He said quietly. “It was a long time ago.” 

Shiro hummed and moved on, running his finger up the back of the ear to follow the grain of the short hairs (or was it fur?).  He carded his fingers through Keith’s incredibly soft, dark hair and brushed it out of the way to see the base of the ear. He didn’t know why he was surprised to find that the ear joined the side of Keith’s head just a little higher than where a human ear would have been, and that he didn’t have a set of human ears underneath. The skin underneath his ears was just as smooth and soft as the skin under Shiro’s earlobes, although his skin color darkened from beige to mauve to dark purple at the base of the ear.  The hair around the ear was very soft, almost like a cross between fur and actual hair. All of his hair was incredibly soft and Shiro would gladly spend hours running his hands through it, but the short fluff at the base of his ears and hidden under the surrounding longer hair was especially soft to the touch. 

Out of curiosity, Shiro lightly scratched just behind Keith’s ear.  The reaction was immediate; Keith’s eyes fell closed with a soft sigh and he seemed to relax a bit.  Shiro kept scratching, fascinated, and Keith shifted closer with a murmured command to keep going. Shiro brought his other hand up to scratch behind the other ear, and Keith practically melted at the touch.  

He wasn’t entirely sure how it happened, but between Keith wiggling closer and Shiro shifting to accommodate him, Keith somehow ended up half on top of Shiro with a leg tangled between his and an arm curled around his waist, head on his chest as he let Shiro continue to scratch his ears.  Shiro didn’t mind at all; he was only happy to oblige him and keep running his fingers through Keith’s soft hair, admiring the slightly iridescent-purple hue to the black strands as they sifted through his fingers. He was a little surprised, though, when he felt a low vibrating sensation start to come from Keith, the sound slowly growing stronger and waning with every breath of air that puffed across his chest.  

“Are you… purring?”  Shiro asked, amused. 

Keith blinked his eyes open, and Shiro realized he had actually dozed off a bit.  “Oh. Yeah, Galra do that. I haven’t in years, though; it’s usually hard to feel that completely relaxed.”  Even as he spoke, Shiro could feel the vibrations fading. 

He curled an arm around him and went back to carding his fingers through his hair.  “You can keep going, if you want.” 

Keith chuckled and laid down again, the purr low but still there.  “I have a bit more trouble with it than most Galra. My vocal chords are a little different.  My mom said she used to worry about me when I was a newborn kit, because I didn’t do it much. Can humans not purr?”

“We can’t.”  Shiro shook his head.  

“Sorry if it’s weird, then.”  Keith apologized. 

“No, I like it.” Shiro was quick to reassure him.  He chuckled. “It’s like I’m petting a giant cat.” He scratched behind his ears again.  

Keith opened one eye and looked up at him lazily.  “A what?”

“A cat.  It’s a creature from Earth.  Lots of people keep them as pets, but there are also bigger, wild varieties.”  Shiro explained. He held his hands about a foot and a half apart. “They’re about this big, have soft fur, ears shaped a little like yours,” he ran a finger along the edge of one, “and tails,” he reached down to touch the soft tuft of fur at the end of Keith’s tail.  “And they purr when they’re happy.” He chuckled. “Sometimes they seem cold and grouchy on the outside, but once they get to know you, they can be sweet and cuddly.” In a way, not unlike Keith himself. 

“Hm,” Keith flicked his tail out of Shiro’s fingers only to curl it around his waist.  “That sounds a bit like the creatures from my friend’s planet, little fluffy creatures that are calm most of the time but can spit fire when they’re mad.  He had one as a pet when he was a kit.” Keith laughed softly at the memory. “One time, when we were both new recruits, he tried to bring one back with him, but Th-- another friend was allergic, so he started sneezing up a storm and we had to take the little thing back.  It was cute, though.”

Shiro brushed a hand through his hair again thoughtfully.  “You seem to have a lot of friends.” He commented. It was odd, honestly, because Keith didn’t seem overly social.  Furthermore, Shiro had seen him get belittled and mocked by the other guards and officers for being half-Galra.

Keith sighed deeply.  “They’re more than my friends, really.  They’re more like… brothers. Family, but not the same way my mom and I were family.  Some of them helped raise me after she died, others joined while I was growing up and learning how to fight, so we sparred together.”  He sighed again. The purring had stopped completely. “I worry about them. Every day.” He admitted quietly.

“Worried about their planet being taken over?”  Shiro asked. 

A rush of air left Keith’s nose like a ghost of a laugh.  “They’re already deep inside the Empire. That’s what makes it so dangerous.”  He bit his lip, silent for several long moments. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Shiro.  I do. But this is bigger than either of us. If even a hint gets out, everything could be in danger.  I’m sorry, I can’t tell you. I want to, but if they even  _ think  _ you know something, they’ll torture you to get it out.  It’s just too dangerous.”

Shiro was quiet.  “I wouldn’t tell them.”  He said. “Even if they tortured me.”  He didn’t know what secrets Keith was keeping hidden behind those walls of his.  But he knew he would rather die than do anything that would put Keith in danger. Maybe Keith felt the same way about him (or more likely, his friends).  

Keith shifted up so their faces were level.  “I know you wouldn’t.” He said quietly. “But I can’t put you at that kind of risk.  Please. This is the only way I know I can keep you, and me, and my brothers safe. I’m sorry.”  He rested his forehead against Shiro’s, his eyes falling closed. 

Shiro curled a hand around the back of his neck, bumping Keith’s nose with his own.  “It’s okay. I understand.” Maybe not completely, but… he at least understood the desire to protect someone.  

“I hope… I hope I can tell you, one day.”  Keith whispered. “Maybe if we can finally put an end to this, then the danger won’t be there anymore, and I can tell you everything.  Stars, I want it to be over, Shiro, but… this war is just so  _ long _ …” he sighed and moved closer, threading their fingers together between them.  “Leader always says to be patient, but… it’s so  _ hard _ , when I see what the Empire is doing to these planets and these people… I want to act, to  _ do something _ , but without the recon… there’s nothing I can do.  We just have to wait, and it kills me.” 

_ Patience…  _ Shiro remembered his grandfather taking his hand and saying that to him in that field of stars, all those years ago.  “Patience yields focus.” He said quietly. “When it seems like there are no ways out, have patience, and your heart will see the way.”

Keith said nothing as he mulled the words over, then sighed once more.  “That’s… a good way of putting it. Yeah. Patience yields focus.” He closed his eyes again, forehead against Shiro’s.  “Patience yields focus.”

~~~~~~~

That night, for the first time in years, Keith dreamed about his mother.

_ He didn’t know where his mom went during those periods where she disappeared for a while.  He didn’t know what the little purple communicator she had was, or what she would type into it at late hours of the night.  He didn’t notice any of the oddities of his life, because it was the only situation he knew, and he was only a few decaphoebes old, anyway; children that age seldom knew the world outside their small sphere.  It was just the way things were. Until everything changed. Until his mother came home one day clutching her side, her clothes stained with something dark, and told him they were leaving. She picked him up with one arm and grunted as she hurried out of the house without taking anything else.  Keith was confused… what about all their stuff? But she said there was no time.  _

_ She bundled him into a dusty old cruiser that looked a few ticks from falling apart, and Keith grew distracted looking at all the colorful lights on the control panel and marvelling at how the ground became further and further away.  “Where’re we going?” He asked, turning wide eyes on her.  _

_ Her expression was set tight in a grimace, hand pressed to her side.  “Somewhere safe.”  _

_ He nodded and accepted that as the truth.  She always kept him safe, from bugs and giant spiders and rabid yelmores.  As long as he had Mama, he would always be safe. Even a few vargas later, when the ship started making ominous thunks and clunks, he wasn’t scared.  His mom lurched to her feet -- her whole side was drenched in dark red wetness that left the air smelling coppery -- and told him to stay put while she checked the engine.  Keith watched the stars race past the window. He was starting to get a bit of a bad feeling, but… he didn’t understand it. His mama was the strongest in the galaxy, though.  Nothing bad could happen to her.  _

_ The shaking ship became steadier, but moments later, he heard his mother gasp and fall to the floor behind him.  He looked around to find her collapsed on the walkway between the engine and the pod door, a trail of something red smeared on the metal behind her.  “Mama?” Keith slid off the chair and toddled back to her, legs unsteady against the moving vehicle.  _

_ His mom looked up, her face twisted in anguish.  Still, she smiled at him. “Keith, baby, I need you to listen to me.” _

_ “Yeah?”  He sat down beside her, trying to ignore the dark feeling building in his chest.  Something was wrong, but he didn’t know what.  _

_ She took his hand, smearing some of the red liquid on his hands.  “I might not make it much longer. I’ve programed this pod to go to my friends.  They’ll take care of you.”  _

_ “Us.”  Keith said, confused.  “You’re coming too, right?” _

_ “I’ll try, Keith, I really will.”  She smiled, but it looked wrong, sad.  Smiles weren’t supposed to be sad. “But if I can’t, I want you to go with my friends.  Show them this, and they’ll help you.” She pulled out a sheathed knife, a purple S-shaped insignia glowing where the blade met the hilt.  “Be very careful with this, okay? You shouldn’t take it out and play with it. Just show this to my friends, and they will take care of you.  Do you understand?” _

_ “Yeah.”  He didn’t understand why she couldn’t come with him.  She was right here.  _

_ Her expression softened, and she touched the side of his face.  He leaned into the familiar stroke, even though it felt wet and sticky now.  “I love you, Keith.” She whispered, voice sounding strained. “Always remember that.”   _

_ Her hand went limp, falling away from him as her eyes fluttered closed.   _

_ His eyes widened, confused.  “Mama?” He picked up her hand, and it lay limp in his own.  “Mama? Mama, wake up. Mama?” No matter how many times he called for her or shook her shoulder, she didn’t move, and he began to grow afraid.  He didn’t understand what was happening, or why she wouldn’t wake up. “Mama? Mama! Please, wake up, Mama… I’m scared… Mama, please wake up!”  _

_ Something beeped in the front of the ship, loud enough to startle him out of his tears.  “Foreign vessel. Identify yourself.” A deep, unfamiliar voice said. He noticed the pod had stopped moving at some point, the shaking now having gone still.  Keith rubbed his fist over his eyes and staggered to the front of the cockpit, just as the voice repeated the command, a touch more coldly. “Foreign vessel, identify yourself immediately.” _

_ “H-hello?”  Keith could only barely see over the top of the control panel, where a screen had materialized showing a flat black background with a line stretching through it that waved with every little sound.  In the bottom corner was a smaller screen that showed his face poking out over the control panel, a streak of red on his cheek. Did that mean they could see him? Keith looked around for the source of the voice.  “Hello? Can you help us? I-I think Mama needs help.” _

_ “Identify yourself.”  The voice on the screen demanded, sound line wavering.  “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” _

_ “I-I don’t know, but I think Mama is hurt… she won’t wake up…” Keith sniffled, rubbing his eyes.  “She said this pod would go to her friends and they could help. Are you friends with Mama? She said to show you this.”  He held up the knife, brandishing it in the air like a sword as long as his arm.  _

_ The voice was quiet for a moment.  “Where did you get that?” It asked, a terse whisper.   _

_ “Mama had it.  Sh-she just gave it to me, and said to show you.”  Keith looked back at his mother, crumpled on the ground.  “Please… she’s not waking up… I don’t know what to do…” _

_ The voice grew quiet again, the only sound the dull hum of the engine as it hovered in place, and the sound of Keith’s sniffles.  Then, the voice spoke up again. “I’m sending a team out to meet you. Stay where you are.”  _

_ Keith just nodded and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.  He didn’t know how to make the pod move, so he had nowhere to go.  He went back and knelt next to his mother again, gripping the knife in his fist.  When he touched her hand, it was cold and felt… wrong. The sticky red stuff was everywhere, and he didn’t understand any of this but he knew it was bad, all wrong.   _

_ Two Galra wearing masks came to the pod and forced open the outer airlock door with crowbars.  They came inside, and Keith turned to them with teary eyes. “Help… please help, Mama isn’t waking up… sh-she’s not waking up…” he broke off with a sob as one of them gathered him into his arms.   _

_ The other masked Galra knelt next to his mother, pressing two fingers to her throat as he whispered something that sounded like “Krolia…”   _

_ “Ulaz?”  The one holding him asked.  “Is it really her?” _

_ “It was.”  The other one straightened up, holding her knife.  He looked down at it, then let his hand fall to his side.  “She’s gone.”  _

_ Keith burst into tears without really understanding why, burying his face in the Galra’s neck.   _

_ Time passed in a blur, after that.  He caught fragments here and there -- the other Galra saying “you hold him, Thace, I’ll fly us back”, being surrounded by other Galra, all of them wearing the same glowing masks and dark uniforms, whispers and choked sobs, murmurings to “prepare a proper funeral for her” and being passed around from person to person -- but all the events swirled around him like a dizzying haze.  He wasn’t really present for much of it, he was just sort of… there. He felt like he was back in the pod, alone and directionless, just an unmanned vessel hurtling through space.  _

_ His first clear memory after that came when his eyes were painfully dry even though his heart was still filled with sorrow.  One of the Galra had pushed a water pouch into his hands, saying something about ‘dehydration’, whatever that was, but he couldn’t bring himself to drink.  The pouch was warm in his little hands, warm in a way his mother’s hand hadn’t been.  _

_ The one with the fluffy tufts on either side of his head -- Thace -- who had picked him up and held him before, had sat him on a counter and was dabbing at the smears of red on his skin with a wet rag.  A group of Galra were huddled nearby, talking in quiet voices. Some had taken their masks off, others had left them on. Keith’s vision remained unfocused and vacant in front of him, unresponsive as Thace cleaned him.  _

_ “... a tragedy, truly.” _

_ “You don’t think she was followed, do you?” _

_ “If she had been, it is unlikely her kit would have survived.”   _

_ “Her poor kit… Do you think she had him during her time on Earth?”   _

_ “What should we do with him?  We cannot leave him on his own…” _

_ “If Krolia’s last act was to send him to us, then we must honor her memory.” _

_ “Leader, you can’t be suggesting…?” _

_ “We must honor her final act.  We will raise the kit in her stead.”   _

_ “Yes, it is only fitting…” _

_ “This base is not equipped to raise a kit…” _

_ “We can manage.  We will have to.” _

_ Thace tilted his chin up with a thumb, rubbing the wet rag over his cheek.  “You should drink something, kit. I’m sure you’re very thirsty.”  _

_ Keith said nothing and didn’t move, save for letting Thace turn his head to the side to wipe off the side of his neck.  He remained completely unresponsive as Thace worked, until Thace got to his hands. He turned Keith’s right wrist over and wiped at the blood on his forearm, then frowned and scrubbed a little harder at his wrist.  When the pale brown lines refused to wash off, though, he frowned and lifted his arm to inspect it closer. “What on…? Who would be so cruel as to tattoo a kit? And with an alien script, no less.” _

_ “...‘s not alien.”  Keith spoke up, his voice quiet.  “It’s from Earth. Like my dad.” Mama had told him as much.  He was born with it, she said, and it would help him find his soulmate, just like hers had helped her find his dad.  He tilted his wrist so he could see the letters, still unfamiliar to him but no less unfamiliar than Galran. “It says ‘I’m fine’.”   _

_ Thace paused.  “You can read it?”   _

_ Keith nodded wordlessly, letting his hand fall back into his lap.  Mama had taught him to read both. Even though he was young, and he had never set foot on Earth.  She said it was important, to know where he came from. _

_ Thace said something else, but the memory spun and blurred, and when it became clear again, Keith was older.  It had taken a long time for him to feel anything other than overwhelming sadness or a strange, empty feeling, going through the motions of living even though he felt dead inside.  But the others had helped -- Thace and Ulaz, Antok, Kolivan… and all the others. A village raising a child as best they could in the midst of a war. In time, he began to heal and come out of his shell, but he could never get rid of that deep scar that his mother’s death had left on his heart.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to.  _

_ They were called the Blade of Marmora.  He knew this, without ever remembering where he had first heard it.  He was only aware of bits and pieces of their mission and what they did, the members becoming more willing to divulge such information to him as he grew older and better understood the universe around him.  Hardly a kit any longer, he was still far too young to go on missions himself, but Kolivan returned his mother’s knife to him on his tenth birthday, when he deemed him old enough to handle such a weapon without injuring himself.  He slept with it clutched to his chest, most nights, even though it couldn’t fill the hole his mother had left behind. As he grew up, the knife migrated to under his pillow when he didn’t wear it strapped to his belt. It was smaller than a lot of the other members’ blades, but still too big for his hand.  He grew into it, though, and it came to balance perfectly in his grip, as if his mother’s knife was a true extension of himself.  _

_ From a young age, he helped the older Blades as much as he could.  He learned how they grew plants in the base’s small greenhouse and how to prepare food in the galley, since members of a covert spy organization could hardly just go to an intergalactic grocery store.  Antok made him clothes -- with only teasing grumbling about the rate at which he was growing, all with an affectionate ruffle of his hair between his ears -- and showed him how to mend his own. Ulaz made sure he kept up with his studies in math and science, adamant that even a child of the rebellion should be properly educated, or decently at the very least.  Thace checked his ears for space mites and bandaged him when he fell and tried very hard not to laugh when Keith accidentally tied his own tail in a knot. Kolivan taught him how to fight, even when Thace argued he was still too young, but Leader was patient and made him work through his paces before ever giving him any kind of weapon.  _

_ In his freetime, he liked to read books.  He sometimes curled up next to another Blade while they were working on a report or going over intel.  Members brought him data-books when they were able, everything from Galran myths to engine repair manuals.  His favorites, though, were the few strange, old-looking tomes that came from Unilu swap markets and trading post moons, real books stolen from Earth by Martians and Greys and anyone else who dared to visit the isolated planet.  The first one they had given him, to distract him from the sadness he came to them with, was a book a little thicker than a data-pad and was far above his reading level, but he sounded out the words with painstaking care anyway, because it was from Earth, and his mom had loved Earth.  If he could keep hold of that part of his heritage, he thought, then maybe he could keep hold of her. The older Blades smiled sadly and nodded in agreement, and always brought him a new book when they happened upon one. It wasn’t often, as goods from Earth were rare, but it always brought him joy.  Even the one time Ulaz brought him a book he couldn’t read.  _

_ “What is this?”  Keith asked, studying the cover.  It was unlike any book he had ever seen. _

_ “A book from Earth.”  Ulaz explained, setting his pack down.  “My ship was damaged escaping some Imperial drones, so I had to stop at a swap moon on the fringes of the Thaldicon system and search for spare parts.  I came across a Grey trader selling things she took from Earth.”  _

_ Keith looked down at the cover again, running his thumb over the… letters?  They weren’t like any letters he had ever seen before. They were printed on the paper, same as his other books, but these strange shapes were made up of unfamiliar lines and hooks and dashes.  Some of them almost looked like simple pictures. “You’re sure it’s from Earth?” _

_ “Quite.”  Ulaz nodded.  “The Grey in question said she nearly crashed her ship into an ocean on that trip -- Earth is covered in those.  She did not seem to be lying.” _

_ Keith leafed through the pages and found dozens of illustrations, the drawing style so different than anything like in his other books, but beautiful in a strange, almost-alien sort of way.  In the pictures, a girl with an elaborate hairstyle and flowing dress seemed to reach across a river towards a boy with a small hat. There were dots all around them -- stars? -- and littered throughout the river.  He couldn’t read any of the text on the page. Still, he thanked Ulaz for the gift and spent hours looking through the illustrations, making up his own story to go along with it. He even wrote down the stories he made up for it, just to practice writing in the language his mother said his father spoke.  It was different from Galran, very different, but he worked hard at both of them. _

_ He practiced his greetings, too; it seemed the most logical, since his soulmark read ‘I’m fine”.  Surely, then, he would one day go to Earth, find his soulmate, and greet them with a “how are you?” or “how’s it going?”  Then they would reply with “I’m fine”, and the two of them would just know that they were soulmates, just like his parents had.  Surely, that was how it would work. So he kept reading his books and practicing wrapping his tongue around the alien-sounding letters and words that were so different than Galran, and he hoped and waited for the day he would get to use them.   _

_ Eventually, though, just reading and cooking and sparring weren’t enough for him.  He was filled with a restless energy that only grew stronger every time another Blade left for a mission.  The rest of them could hardly be surprised when Keith found his way to Kolivan’s room and requested to be allowed to join them.   _

_ “Absolutely not.”  Kolivan said.  _

_ “Wh-what?  Why?” Keith demanded.  He had grown up hearing the rest of them call him “little blade” and their “brother”; wasn’t it only natural that he take his place beside them in duty? _

_ “You are still far too young.”  Kolivan told him. “The field of war is not a suitable place for a kit.” _

_ “I’m not even a kit anymore!”  Keith argued. “I’m sixteen, nearly seventeen!  You joined the Blade when you were fourteen!”  _

_ “The circumstances were different.”  Kolivan said. “The old Leader was, perhaps, unwise to let recruits so young into his ranks.”   _

_ “You just gave Regris a mission.  He joined the Blade two weeks ago and he’s only a year older than me.  What’s different about him?” Keith asked. _

_ “Regris joined of his own volition.”  Kolivan said. “You had nowhere else to go when we took you in.  I’ll not have you be pressed into this just because it’s the only way of life you know.”   _

_ “I  _ _ want _ _ to do it,” Keith told him.  “The Blade is my family. I want to protect my family.  I want to stand beside my brothers in battle, not hide behind the ranks.  I want to  _ _ help _ _.”  He broke off for a moment, voice choked.   _

_ “I know.”  Kolivan said, his tone softening.  “But we only want to protect you. Missions -- especially undercover infiltration -- are exceptionally dangerous for you.  The Empire is not kind to hybrids or those who look different. Ask anyone; Antok, Ulaz, myself…” he unclasped his gauntlet and showed Keith a brand burned into his skin, the Imperial insignia surrounded by the words ‘Galran Purity’ around it.  Keith knew Ulaz -- pure-blooded Galra himself, but leucistic -- had a similar mark burned onto the pale lavender skin of his shoulder. Antok seldom took his mask off ever since his right eye had been gouged out, while whip marks twisted up the length of his back and his tail was just a little crooked at the tip from being broken.   _

_ Kolivan sighed.  “We only wish to spare you the violence we have felt at the Empire’s hands.  We do not want to see you torn to pieces as we have been.”  _

_ Keith thought about his words.  “If anything… that’s all the more reason why I should.”  He said. “The Empire can’t keep going like this; we have to take it down, so people can’t get hurt like this anymore.  Even if what I can do to help is small, it’s still something. I have to do my part, whatever I can.” He took a deep breath.  “I have to do this. What the Empire is doing is wrong. They’re killing and enslaving hundreds of thousands, they’re destroying planets.  They killed my mother. They’ve killed other Blades, the only thing close to family that I have left. I  _ _ have _ _ to do something.  I can’t just stand by anymore while others risk their lives.” _

_ Kolivan watched him for a few minutes, silent.  Keith held his ground, body rigid with determination but gaze lowered respectfully to his Leader’s feet.   _

_ At long last, Kolivan rested a large, clawed hand on his shoulder.  “I will find a mission for you tomorrow.” He said, voice quiet. “You must promise that you will come back to us alive.”  He drew him in for a hug, wrapping his arms around him.  _

_ Keith smiled, tears pricking at his eyes.  “Thank you.”  _

_ He left for his mission less than a week later, disguised as a new recruit for a security force on a Balmeran crystal-mining operation, with the objective to find out for what purpose they were mining the crystals.  Almost immediately, he found himself the subject of ridicule among the other recruits, with everything from his height to his lack of purple skin to his tail to his visible irises and pupils. He grit his teeth and forced himself to focus on the mission at hand, even when they pulled on his tail and swatted him upside the head or bumped into him with a laugh of “sorry, runt, didn’t see you there!”  The mission was more important, he told himself. He took notes, he did recon, he sent reports back to headquarters through his encrypted communicator -- his mother’s, recycled and updated -- and when the time came, he made sure the alarms were offline when another team of Blades snuck in and he helped them sabotage the mining operation. He returned to the base several months after he had left, only to be greeted with congratulations and affectionate hair ruffles and back pats, and even Kolivan had to admit he was old enough to take on more missions of his own.    _

_ His second mission did not go as well.  He barely escaped with his life. A mere moment of carelessness -- he was sending a report back to the base -- and someone walked up behind him and ripped any peace left in his life from him as easily as he ripped the communicator out of his hands. _

_ “What’ve you got there, runt?”  Another footsoldier who had enlisted just before Keith joined demanded.  “Ooh, a communicator… what would the lieutenant say?” _

_ “What, I’m not allowed to have a girlfriend or family?”  Keith lied. “Give it back.” _

_ “Girlfriend, huh?  She send you any pics?”  The soldier sneered. “I think that counts as contraband.” _

_ “Give it back.”  Keith reached for it.  The guy held it out of his reach, and his friend caught Keith and pinned his arms behind his back in a grip too strong for him to break.   _

_ The first soldier’s smile slowly slipped off his face as he stared at the screen, and Keith’s heart beat frantically as he struggled to free himself.   _

_ “What?”  The other asked.  “Is she hot?”  _

_ The first soldier ignored him, cold eyes fixing on Keith instead.  “What do these numbers mean?” He showed him the screen.  _

_ “I don’t know.”  Keith lied. “Looks like an error message.  Did you break my communicator?” _

_ “It looks like a  _ _ code _ _.”  He frowned.  “Who’re you sending a code to?”   _

_ “No one.”  Keith spat out.  A moment later, the back of the hand holding the communicator slapped him across the face, hard enough to make him see stars.   _

_ “What are you, some kind of spy?”  He demanded. “Who were you sending this to?” _

_ “Don’t be ridiculous.”  Keith said. “I fight in the name of Galra, just like everyone else here.”   _

_ “No one else here has a communicator filled with sketchy caches of numbers, you half-breed runt.”  The soldier hissed, crushing the device in his hand. “We’re going to make you tell us everything you know, and then we’re gonna turn your lying, spying ass over to the lieutenant and the commander.” _

_ They rounded up more of their cronies, more than Keith could fight off.  They beat him, punched him in the face and kicked him in the stomach, they broke his arm and pulled on his hair, they sliced a cut into the tip of his ear and tried to yank his tail off his body.  There were too many of them, and he grew exhausted trying to fight them off, but he still refused to talk. They would have killed him -- they nearly did, one of them left to get a knife to slit his throat -- when an emergency extraction team of Blades showed up, tipped off by a signal sent automatically when his communicator was destroyed.  Keith had never been more relieved to see them, but… there was still a certain trauma to watching Antok snap a Galra’s neck with his bare hands, even if that Galra had been one of his attackers.  _

_ They managed to get him out and back to the base, where they treated his wounds and he could recover.  The event left him rattled, and he spent three nights wedged between Thace and Ulaz in their bed, no different than the small, frightened kit he came to them as.  He returned to his room when he no longer woke up screaming, but the nightmares continued to plague him long after that. They weren’t every night, but they worsened whenever news came back to them that another one of their brothers had been killed in the field, as if his brain was reminding him ‘that could have been you’.  It very nearly was, and he had the scars to prove it. His arm and the bones in his tail healed, his wounds scarred over, his bruises faded… but he could never forget the feeling of hands pinning him while fists dealt him blow after blow, the helplessness and fear and regret that saturated his bones as exhaustion overtook his limbs and he knew he wouldn’t last much longer, the aching pressure of clawed hands around his throat, the cold press of a knife to his jugular and knowing there was little he could do to stop them from ending his life here… _

“--Keith?!  Keith, wake up!”  A dim voice filtered through the dark haze of his dream, slowly at first, then suddenly fast.  He shot back to consciousness at once, eyes flying open as he sucked in a deep breath, feeling like he had been drowning without having realized it.  Shiro was looking down at him, the low purple glow of the emergency lighting on the floor the only thing illuminating his worried face. “Are you okay?  You looked like you were having a nightmare.” He asked.

Keith took a shuddering breath and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.  “Y-yeah. Just some… stuff I haven’t thought about in years. I’m… I’m okay.” He wasn’t.  He wasn’t; he could still feel their claws around him, still hear the threats:  _ we killed your mother, we killed your brothers, and we’ll kill you too... _

Shiro laid down again and watched his face.  He lifted his hand and brushed the backs of his knuckles over Keith’s cheek, the touch soft.  “It’s okay to not be okay, Keith.” He said quietly. 

Keith bit his lip, turning the words over in his mind.  His shoulders shook and a sob slipped out of him before he could stop it.  Shiro was on him at once, immediately drawing him close to his chest in a hug.  

Neither said anything, after that, but neither needed to.  They just held each other tight and took comfort in the knowledge that the other was there, alive, with arms around them.     

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the bulk of this fic before Krolia appeared in canon (at the end of season 5, I think?) Soooo... sorry for killing her off, but it was already in the story, whoops. (T^T)


	4. Chapter 4

Every time Shiro stepped into that arena, he felt a sudden, blinding realization, that it would only take one mistake to bring about his end.  One fraction of a second, one miscalculation for a lunge, one moment too late on a dodge, one tiny hesitation, and it could all too easily end his life.  Every time, without fail, he felt he could see his own mortality hanging by a thread between himself and his opponent, one wrong move away from slicing it and him in half.  

A sudden, blinding,  _ painful  _ realization.  

He hadn’t thought he would feel it after the fact, too.  

~~~~~~~

The first thing Shiro was aware of, when he woke up, was that everything was too damn warm.  It was surprising, really, because the Galra prison was always a bit colder than comfortable, given the thick metal walls and the prisoners’ thin clothing.  The heat he felt was enough to be irritating, but not overwhelming. Like leaving an electric blanket on just a bit too high and waking up covered in sweat, but still too tired to bother moving.  The heat seemed to be centered around his right arm, weirdly enough. 

With what felt like far too much effort for something so simple, Shiro peeled his eyes open and squinted against the bright lights of the infirmary.  He had woken up here before after some tougher battles, so he recognized the ceiling. He looked down -- ugh, his neck was horribly stiff -- and found his right arm submerged in a vat of opaque yellow liquid.  During his time here, he had already become familiar with the ‘quintessence-based’ medicines the Galra used, which seemed to be able to heal everything from burns and small cuts to even deep lacerations. He had never seen this much of it before, though.  Strange. He wiggled his fingers under the surface, wondering just how beat up his arm is.

He froze suddenly, eyes riveted on the vat of liquid.  Heart pounding, he wiggled his fingers again.

The surface of the liquid remained still.  Not a single ripple.

No…

Shiro sat up in bed, the movement pulling his arm out of the water, and his eyes widened at the sight.  His arm just… stopped, from just above the elbow down. It was just gone. Gone. It wasn’t there anymore, but… it  _ felt  _ like it should be there still.  He could practically feel his fingers wiggling and his hand flexing and curling into a fist, but there was no movement.  There was nothing  _ to  _ move.  

Suddenly the memories hit him like a freight truck, colliding and exploding in a burst of images and sounds and feelings.  The too-bright lights of the arena… his opponent, twice his height and with razor-sharp teeth and mandibles as thick around as his head… a moment of hesitation, his weapon being ripped from his hand… one misstep, and those mandibles catching his arm in a crushing -- literally  _ crushing _ \-- grip… blinding pain, screaming… teeth like serrated knives slicing into his ruined arm and tearing it from his body… red, red, everywhere red, and everything  _ pain _ … He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t…

“--iro?  Shiro!” A familiar voice pulled him back to the present -- back to  _ life _ \-- and he found Keith crouched in front of him, helmet off and eyes wide with worry.  “Shiro, are you with me?”

“...Keith…” Shiro whispered, voice aching and raw.  He tore his gaze away from those yellow and indigo eyes and looked down at his arm -- his… his  _ stump _ \-- covered in half-healed scars and dripping yellow serum.  “What… my…” It didn’t hurt, but it  _ should  _ hurt, and he couldn’t breathe…

“Shiro, look at me.”  And he did, because he would do anything that voice told him to do.  Keith was there, steely eyes locked on his. “I need you to breathe, Shiro.  Take a deep breath with me, okay?”

Shiro copied him, over and over, and eventually, the fuzzy gray haze started to retreat from the edges of his vision.  He swallowed hard, unable to look anywhere but at Keith. His throat was dry, sticking together and stealing his breath.  “What… what happened?” 

Keith’s eyes softened with something close to pity, and Shiro wanted to kiss the furrow away from between his brows.  “You were fighting a creature called the Annihilator, and it got ahold of your arm… the medics couldn’t save it. They had to amputate it.”  

Shiro looked down again, and his stomach flipped again at the sight.  It hadn’t been a clean break, he could tell that much. Dozens of scars lined radiated up his arm from the center of the stump, which was lumpy and uneven.  “...How long ago?” He asked Keith. The scars looked… suspiciously old.

“Just yesterday.”  Keith replied. “Your arm has been soaking in quintessence-based serum for the past quintant.”

A day.

His arm was gone.  And healed. All before the shock had even worn off.  All before he had even  _ known _ .  

A part of him distantly wondered with an almost morbid fascination just how this quintessence stuff actually worked.  Another part of him wondered something more pressing. “Why… why are you here?” The question came out more rude than he intended.  

But Keith understood him all the same.  He always did. “I’ve been taking on lots of med bay jobs so I could be around when you woke up.”  He smiled reassuringly. “Luckily no one else wants to clean out the bedpans or mop up vomit, so they’re not really questioning my motives.”  

“That’s shitty.”  Shiro blurted it out before he could think to stop himself.  “Or pissy, I guess.”

Keith tilted his head just slightly and gave him a mollified look, like he couldn’t quite believe Shiro had just made a joke on his deathbed.  “You should lay down again. Your arm still needs to soak some more before it’s fully healed.” He said, taking his shoulders and helping him lay back on the bed.  He carefully set Shiro’s arm -- what was left of it -- back in the vat of liquid again and made sure it was fully submerged. Shiro winced; his nerves felt raw, but the serum felt warm and soothing.  It was a strange contradiction of feelings. 

Keith combed his fingers through Shiro’s hair to push his bangs out of his eyes, offering him a reassuring smile.  “Try and go to sleep, get some rest. I’ll be close by, I promise.” 

And Shiro  _ was  _ exhausted, so he let his heavy eyelids fall closed.  He trusted Keith.

~~~~~~~

He had no idea how Keith managed it, but by some miracle (and probably a fair amount of bribery), Keith was able to take Shiro back to his room straight after the doctor released him.  Shiro honestly didn’t think too much about it, as he had more pressing matters on his mind, but he was incredibly grateful. He felt… unbalanced, without his right arm, and not just because he left the infirmary several pounds lighter than he entered it.  His whole world seemed off-kilter, and if he didn’t have Keith’s hand on his left arm to guide him, he had a feeling he might walk straight off the edge of the Earth and plummet through space.

...Well, technically, he had already done that.

“We’re almost there,” Keith told him.  Shiro recognized the corridor they were in as the one housing the lower-rank guards.  He nodded mutely, not trusting his voice. 

Keith unlocked his door quickly and tugged him inside.  No sooner had the door closed than Keith was pulling him into a bone-crushing hug.  Shiro gripped the back of his armor like a lifeline and buried his face in the side of Keith’s neck like his soft, beautiful hair could hide him from the world.  

“I thought I’d lost you…” Keith whispered.  “When I saw you go down… and all the blood… Shiro, I thought I had lost you…”

“Keith…” Shiro choked out, not knowing what to say.  He thought he had been lost, too. He nearly had been.  It was a miracle that he was even holding him right now, that he was even breathing.  

Keith pulled back from the hug just enough to look up at him, and Shiro found his eyes sparkling with barely-held-back tears.  Keith reached up and cradled his cheek, thumb spreading a wetness over the new scar on the bridge of his nose, and Shiro realized he was crying too.  His own mortality had hit him far too hard today, and Shiro felt that same sudden, blinding realization that he didn’t want to die without having been as close to Keith as possible.  

Luckily, Keith seemed to have come to the same conclusion as him, because both of them leaned in at the same time.  Their lips came together clumsily, both of them desperate to get closer,  _ closer _ … It stung the freshly-healed scar on his nose but he didn’t care, he would endure anything to keep kissing Keith.  Shiro let out a frustrated whine because he couldn’t  _ hold  _ Keith with one arm, but then Keith had him pressed up against the door and Shiro pulled him as close as he could, and a comforting warmth spread over both of them as if their very souls were being soaked in sunlight.  They were alive, and they were  _ together _ …

A sudden banging ripped them back to reality, and Shiro jumped so much he accidentally bit down on Keith’s lip.  Someone called through the door, “hey, half-breed! You’ll have to turn over your little plaything tonight, Lady Haggar requires him.  Open up!” 

Shiro didn’t know who Lady Haggar was or what she would want with him, but when he met Keith’s eyes, there was fear there, and that scared him more than the uncertainty ever could.  Keith wasn’t afraid of anything. 

“Shiro…” Keith took his face in his hands, thumbs stroking over his cheekbones with a strange sort of gentle desperation.  “I love you. I want you to know that. Whatever happens, remember that I love you.” He leaned in again and kissed him once more, trembling and desperate.  “I love you.” He whispered the words against his lips once more, like a fervent prayer to the universe.

~~~~~~~

The last thing Shiro saw was Keith watching helplessly as the guard dragged him away down the corridor.  After that, everything went hazy and faded to dark. He woke up with a shiny new arm that moved with just as much fluidity as the one he lost, without a clue how he had gotten it.  He supposed he should be grateful he didn’t remember the pain -- because he knew that there had to have been pain, it was grafted into his nerves -- but it just left him feeling disconcerted, like there was a puzzle piece missing from the picture that made up his memory.  He had so many questions -- why him? For what purpose? How? ...and  _ what  _ happened to make the bangs of his hair turn  _ white _ ? -- but he was sure no one would answer him if he asked.   

He was scared, when he got released.  He was scared of what happened to him, and why he couldn’t remember it.  He was scared of their intentions, why they were turning his body into something else.  He was scared of having a weapon grafted to his nerves and constantly attached to his body, something he couldn’t just take off.  He had seen others with Galra-tech prosthetics before; they were a reward, given to commanders who were injured in battle. Sometimes they were given to high-ranking gladiators as test subjects for more experimental designs.  They became bloodthirsty individuals, stripped to the bone of their humanity and compassion and built up with iron and steel until they were ruthless killing machines. Myzax was the last gladiator slave permitted to have one, and Shiro had defeated him.  That must have been why Haggar chose him for her next experiment. The thought sickened him as much as it scared him, that he could become the next Myzax. More than anything, though, he was scared to see Keith’s reaction. What would his soulmate think of him, when he saw what he had become?  

Keith, though, drew him into a hug the moment the two of them were alone in his room.  He held him carefully, a different feeling between them than the desperation of their parting.  Everything about the moment seemed fragile, like spun glass. Too much, and it all -- Shiro, his mind, the peace between them… -- would shatter.  But being left alone would also cause him to shatter. Shiro let the Galra-tech arm hang limply by his side, too sick at the thought of feeling it move like it was his own, while he held onto the back of Keith’s armor tightly with his remaining hand.  He sucked in a deep, shuddering breath as he tried to calm his fried nerves, and it worked; with that breath came the cool whiff of shampoo off Keith’s hair and the warm, earthy scent of his skin where Shiro’s nose was pressed close to him, and the familiarity and comfort wrapped around him like a blanket, covering whatever Keith couldn’t with his own hold.  

Keith pulled back just enough to look at him, eyes soft and shiny with barely-held back tears.  “I’m so glad you’re alive…” he whispered, a thumb rubbing over Shiro’s cheekbone. 

Was he?  Could he even be?  They took his arm and replaced it with one of their own creations, what was to say they couldn’t do that to the rest of him?  What if they had? Was he even human now? Was there anything left of him to love?

The fear must have showed on his face, because Keith’s brow furrowed in concern.  “Shiro?”

“Do you…” Shiro’s mouth was dry, the words kept getting caught.  “Do you… still…?”  _ Could  _ Keith even still love him, like this?  Half broken, and the other half a monster?

Keith stared at him for a moment before he understood what he was asking, then his face fell.  “Oh, Shiro…” he leaned up on his toes and pressed his lips to Shiro’s forehead, cradling his face in his hands as he looked him in the eyes.  “I do. I still love you, don’t worry. I will always love you. Always.” He pulled Shiro against his chest again, holding him tight enough to keep the fractured bits of him from falling apart.  “I will love you until every last star in the universe goes out, and even longer then.”

Shiro’s eyes fell closed as a rush of relief swept through him.  He buried his nose in the side of Keith’s neck and let himself to believe those words, because he trusted Keith.

~~~~~~~

Shiro had nightmares, after his operation with the druids.  It wasn’t unexpected, but that didn’t make it any easier to go through.  The most unnerving part was that he couldn’t even remember what the nightmares were about once he woke up, other than feeling a sense of overwhelming dread and terror.  He would just wake up screaming, adrenaline spiking through his veins, but then be unable to recall what it was he had seen. They had done something to him, tampered with his memory or something.  He knew they had to have. The worst part was that his brain seemed to remember what had happened, in excruciating detail, and he felt like he was reliving it every night, but as soon as he woke, the memories were locked away again and he was left sweaty, panting, and terrified of his own mind.  

The two of them forewent any remaining effort to hide their relationship, after that.  Keith brought him to his room whenever he didn’t have nightly duties, nearly every night.  It wasn’t safe for Shiro to stay in the communal cell, where any sign of disturbance -- like waking everyone up screaming -- would only result in being punished himself or earning the whole cell punishment, depending on the cruelness of the guard at the time.  It was much better to get what little sleep he could with Keith’s arms wrapped around him and Keith’s hands and lips soothing away the fear and panic when he woke. 

The frequency of the nightmares began to wane, slowly, but they still didn’t stop their routine.  Perhaps they should have, but the pain was still too raw for them to think of stopping. Until one day when they realized it was too late.  

Shiro knew, as soon as he saw the worried furrow of his brow and the tense set of his jaw, that something was wrong.  As usual, though, Keith waited until the two of them were alone in his room to say anything. “I’m being promoted.” He told him, crossing his arms.  

Shiro could sense there was something else he wasn’t saying.  “Is that bad?” He  _ wanted  _ for Keith to start getting some respect around the ship, instead of being treated like less than the others at his station.  

“They’re transferring me to a mining planet.”  Keith said. “I’ll have to leave this ship.” 

Oh.  Shiro understood immediately.  They wouldn’t be able to see each other anymore.  Possibly forever. He took a deep breath and slowly released it.  “Well, at least with a promotion they’ll respect you more--”

“No, they won’t.”  Keith bristled. “And it doesn’t matter, anyway.  This is just messing everything up. I’m supposed to be  _ here _ .  For you, and for my job-- my  _ real  _ job.”  He pushed his hands through his hair in frustration, ears flattening against his head.  “There were plans in place… Shiro, we were  _ so damn close _ , we were just waiting on one last bit of intel...  But it’s still going to happen. I’m going to  _ make  _ it happen.  I just might not be the one to do it.  But I am  _ not  _ leaving you alone.”  Keith gripped his shoulders, and Shiro saw molten iron in his eyes; burning like fire but steely with determination.  Keith went on, his voice low. “Someone else is coming to keep an eye on this ship, and I’ll tell him to keep an eye on you too.  He’s… well… better at his job than me, so you might not even notice him, but I know he’ll do what he can. He’s sort of like family to me; he and his mate were the ones that found me after my mom died, and they have a soft spot for me so he’ll do it.  He’ll do what he can to keep you safe. And we  _ will  _ meet again.  I promise.” 

Shiro swallowed thickly and nodded.  He didn’t quite understand everything that Keith was saying -- what plans?  What was going to happen? Real job? -- but he knew they were questions Keith couldn’t answer.  “When do you leave?” He asked, feeling like the answer would be a death toll.

The fire dimmed in Keith’s eyes, replaced by regret.  “First thing tomorrow.”

Shiro felt something cold and hard drop into his stomach.  One more night. They had only one more night together.

They would make it last, as much as they could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I mean I ain't gonna say they did the frick-a-frack because this is rated T... but either way, there was a lot of cuddling going on that night)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Auxairybyrd drew some [beautiful artwork](https://auxari.tumblr.com/post/177163164441/human-meets-his-alien-boyfriend-again-he-is-in) for this chapter for Shiro and Keith's reunion. Please check them out!
> 
> (The ending features more fluff and sap than a squirrel stuck to a maple tree...)

Time passed in a blur, after Keith left.  

Shiro still had nightmares, but he thanked his lucky stars (if he had any left) that he had moved past waking up screaming from them.  Instead, he would just jolt out of his sleep in a silent, bone-freezing sort of terror and stare up at the metal ceiling of the communal cell as he listened to the breathing of the sleeping prisoners around him and counted backwards from a thousand by sevens until he calmed enough to try going back to sleep.  He ached to roll over and find a warm body next to him with arms to hold him until he came down, but Keith was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it. He wanted to sob in frustration sometimes; he had literally crossed galaxies to be able to find his soulmate, and the thing that was keeping them apart now was something as trivial as _bureaucracy_ , of all things.

Without his meetings with Keith to look forward to, his days and nights bled into an endless cycle.  Cell, eat, cell, sleep, cell, fight, eat, cell, sleep… There was no way to tell time in the prison, other than the changing of the guards that patrol the corridors.  It seemed like it had been only a few weeks to a month since Keith had left, but it felt like an eternity and a half before there was a change in the monotonous schedule.  Shiro was commanded to get up and follow a guard, but of course he wasn’t told where he was going. These guards were nothing like Keith.

A table with straps underneath a massive light was the last thing he saw before being knocked out by the guard.  When he came to, he found he was strapped to the table by his wrists and ankles, and panic gripped his heart and forced the fog from his mind.  A masked Galra medic with pale lavender skin and a crest of white hair on top of his head stood over the table, along with a few assistants. One of them stuck Shiro with a needled vial before he could do more than grunt in pain as numbness radiated from his arm.  

“You… you took my hand…” Shiro grit out, turning burning eyes on the medic.  “What more do you want from me?” How far would they go, in their quest to destroy what was left of his human body?  

The medic ignored him and turned his attention to the assistant with the needle.  “Stop,” he commanded, swatting the needle away. “I want him awake enough to feel this.”

Cold dread spread through Shiro at his words, tempered only by the fog that was seeping through his body and dragging his mind back towards unconsciousness.  The assistant shrugged and turned away. Suddenly, the medic’s hand snapped out and he slammed one of the assistants against the wall before whipping around and throwing the other against another wall.  The two assistants dropped like stones, out cold.

Wait.  What?

Shiro didn’t understand at all what was happening as the medic ran around the table, pulling his mask off as he went.

“Listen to me.  We don’t have much time.” The medic took out a device that looked like a flashdrive and inserted it into a port on the wrist of Shiro’s prosthetic.  A purple holographic map blinked over the top of it, but Shiro was starting to feel too hazy to focus on it. He groaned and let his heavy eyes fall closed again.  Something slapped him across the face, not especially rough but hard enough to startle him back to consciousness. “Wake up!” The medic commanded, frowning at him. “Zarkon has located the Blue Lion of Voltron on your planet, Earth.  You must get it before he does.”

Shiro looked down at him as much as he could, eyeing the hands that were fiddling with something under the table. “What are you doing?”

The glowing, purple bindings around his wrists and ankles disappeared with a quiet hiss.

“I’ve planted a bomb to cover your escape.”  The medic told him, helping him sit up. “Get to a pod, now.”

“Who are you?”  Shiro asked, suddenly wary.  Could he really trust this person?  He had taken down two Galra, but… it had been so long since Shiro had felt able to trust anyone here.

“I am Ulaz.  Now, come on!”  The medic led him away, keeping a hand on his arm to help him off the table.  “I’ve programed a pod to take you back to Earth, Shiro. It is in the hangar, the closest one to the door.”    

Shiro’s mind felt fuzzy, but his attention snagged on one small detail in particular.  “How… how do you know my name? And that I’m from Earth?”

Ulaz paused, studying him.  “I’m afraid I cannot say.” He looked down, seeming to speak more to himself than Shiro.  “He would want me to. But I cannot.” He looked up again. “Let’s just say, we share a mutual acquaintance.”  

Shiro had no idea what that meant.  He was certain he had never seen this Galra in his life.  Did he know Matt? Sam? “What--”

“We haven’t much time.”  Ulaz cut him off. “I will cause a diversion.  You will get to the escape pod and get to Earth.  You must go to your planet and find the Blue Lion before Zarkon does.” He opened the door and poked his head around the corner, looking up and down the hall from where he was crouched.  He turned back to Shiro. “Zarkon will know that I released you, so I must disappear. But if you survive, go to the coordinates in your arm. The Blade of Marmora is with you.”

Coordinates…? Shiro looked down at his palm, the hair standing up on the back of his neck.  What else was there in this arm? And what was the Blade of Marmora? Shiro looked at Ulaz again.  “Why are you helping me?”

“As a fighter, and a leader, you give hope.”  Ulaz told him. “Hurry, Earth needs you.” He stood up and hurried away down the hall, and Shiro just barely heard him whisper, “we all do.”

Shiro didn’t have time to think about what that meant.  All he knew was that he needed to escape, first and foremost.  The rest could come later.

The sedative in his veins dulled his reflexes and made him feel like he was running through water, but he forced himself to keep going.  He paused behind a doorway to catch his breath for a scant moment, then spurred himself on. In his impaired state, though, he ended up stumbling against a cart of heavy canisters -- raw quintessence? -- and the sound alerted a sentry.  Blaster-fire bursting behind him, he ran for the pod and only just barely managed to get through the doors before they closed, slicing the poor mechanical sentry in half. He struck his head in the fall, and then the pull of unconsciousness was too strong to resist and he let himself slip under.  

~~~~~~~

Before the Kerberos mission, if someone had asked Shiro if he would go to space, he would have said “I hope so.”  If they asked if he would go to space, get abducted by aliens, meet his half-alien soulmate, lose his arm and gain a cyborg one, escape the aliens, go back to Earth only to turn around and get whisked away to space not forty-eight hours later in a giant mechanical cat hidden in the desert, meet an alien princess and her royal advisor who had been cryogenically frozen for ten-thousand years, and become a paladin of a group tasked with defending the universe from the same aliens that had abducted him in the first place, he would have outright laughed at the ridiculousness of it all.  And yet, here he was.

So, objectively, wandering around a space mall looking for mechanical parts was probably not the strangest thing to happen to him.  In fact, besides the fact that most of the mall-goers had an unusual number of limbs and the thing he was looking for would help fix the wormhole-jumping device, the situation was... oddly ordinary.  Apparently, malls in space were not so different from those on Earth, if a little nicer and a lot bigger.

One of the storefronts in the mall caught Shiro’s eye.  The signs inside the window featured sketches and samples of elegant artwork and tribal-looking designs with GAC prices next to them, just on the other side of the window, a heavily-pierced alien looked to be tattooing the arm -- or, tentacle-like appendage -- of another alien who was seated in a chair.  Seized by a sudden impulse, Shiro entered the shop. A chime rang out a tune as the door opened and shut behind him.

“Hey Verce, customer!”  The tattooing alien called towards the back of the shop without looking up from their work.  The other alien let out a discontent gurgle and curled the end of their tentacle. “Well stop flexing and it won’t hurt so much.”  The tattooing one told them.

Another alien skidded out of the back of the shop and leaned on the reception desk, their eyes widening at the sight of him.  “Woah, are you from Terra? We don’t get many Terrans out here.”

“Earth.”  Shiro corrected gently.  “Are these tattoos?”

“Tattoos, piercings, and pretty much any other kind of body modification.”  The alien said. “You looking for something in particular?”

“Just a small one.”  Shiro turned over his arm and drew a line across his left wrist.  “The words ‘ _Y_ _ou’re from Earth, aren’t you?_ ’ right here, in black.”

The alien arched a piercing-studded eyebrow.  “You sure that’s what you want? You know this stuff is permanent, right?”

“Absolutely.”  Shiro nodded. Maybe it was technically cheating, but… he really wanted it.  And damn it, he deserved it. There was a good chance he would never see Keith again, and his actual soulmark had been shredded to bits and ripped off his body when he lost his arm.  After all that, he thought he had earned a do-over.

The alien looked at him a minute longer, then shrugged.  “Hey, as long as you've got the GAC, you could get an intergalactic boy-band tattooed across your back if you want.  Who am I to judge?” They pulled out a clipboard and form with one set of hands and reached for a pen with the other set.  “Just sign this consent form here. Oh, and I’m gonna need you to write down what you want, since I don’t know Earthling.”

Thirty minutes and 50 GAC later, Shiro was walking out of the shop with a brand new tattoo hidden just under the top of his glove.  The tattooing equipment had looked _almost_ the same as the ones on Earth, but they worked quite a bit faster, were less painful, and afterward he just had to stick his hand in a Balmeran crystal-lined box for about five minutes and it was as good as healed.  There was still a little redness around the letters, but they gleamed up at him, black against his skin. Just like a real soulmark. He looked down at it and smiled, then set off to locate the rest of the team.

~~~~~~~           

“I still find this very suspicious.”  Allura said, calmly steering the Red Lion along the narrow path between the blue star and the two black holes.  “I don’t like that they separated us. I do not trust them.”

“If they’ve been fighting Zarkon in secret for ten thousand years, it would be worth it to seek an allyship with them.”  Shiro pointed out, holding onto the back of her pilot chair for balance.

“I know,” Allura sighed.  “I just don’t like being separated from the rest of the team.  It makes me uneasy.”

“You’re the most skilled fighter we have.”  Shiro said. “And I have… a fair amount of experience fighting Galra.”  If he could call surviving and escaping an alien fighting ring ‘experience’.  “As the leader of the coalition and the head of Voltron, we’re the best two for the job.”  

“I hope you’re right.”  Allura said. “And, for the record, I hope your faith in Ulaz is justified, for all our sakes.  But it has been a very long time since I have been able to feel anything but suspicion of Galran motives.”  

Shiro nodded, understanding that.  “If there’s one thing I learned from my imprisonment, it’s that not all Galra have ill intentions.  And not all of them approve of what the Empire is doing.”

“I want to believe that.”  Allura said quietly. She eased back on the controls and landed the Red Lion on the craggy asteroid.

The two of them exited the Lion and looked around, confused.  “This place is barren…” Shiro said slowly.

“Shiro,” Allura nodded toward the heart of the asteroid, where a trapdoor was sliding open.  Two Galra in dark purple armor and masks rose up on a platform, swords strapped to their backs.  Shiro could see the glowing emblem that had been on Ulaz’s knife, emblazoned on the hilts of their own swords.  The figures beckoned them to follow without a word.

They were taken down an elevator into the heart of the asteroid.  The doors opened to reveal an enormous hall with a glowing purple hologram floating above the center of the room, the same insignia that they bore on their blades.  More masked Galra lined the long path to a dias at the front of the room, upon which stood a masked Galra who wore a geometric-patterned, tunic-like wrap over his armor, seeming to indicate higher status.  The figure spoke up as the two of them drew nearer. “I am Kolivan, leader of the Blade of Marmora.”

“I am Princess Allura of Altea.”  Allura declared, striding forward confidently.  Shiro followed only a moment behind, keeping pace with her while he scanned the two rows of masked Galra to either side of them.  

“I know who you are.”  The figure, Kolivan, said.  

“Then you know we were sent by one of your own.”  Allura said, coming to a halt a short distance in front of the dias.  Evidently, she wasn’t about to put herself within striking range with him on the higher ground.

“Ulaz was a fool to divulge this location to you.”  Kolivan said coldly. “He had a penchant for ignoring orders and following his impulses.  That’s what got him killed.”

“He gave his life to save us!”  Shiro spoke up finally, angry that this Kolivan would say such things about one of his own men.  “What he did brought us here today--”

His words were cut off by a small, masked figure near the dias rushing forward, running straight towards Shiro and Allura.  Both of them stepped back reflexively, Allura reaching for her bayard and Shiro lifting his hand to activate it, but then the figure’s mask evaporated from their face and Shiro’s heart both stopped cold and leapt out of his chest at the same time.  

“...Keith?”  He whispered, daring it to be true.  

“Shiro,” Keith gasped, colliding into him a breath later.  He ran into him with such force that it knocked the two of them down, Shiro landing on his back and Keith on top of him.

Shiro let out a startled laugh and returned Keith’s bone-crushing hug, pulling him tight against his chest.  He let go with one hand to cradle the side of Keith’s cheek, relishing the warmth under his palm and the soft smile he received.  “It’s you… it’s really you…” Shiro whispered.

“I told you we would meet again.”  Keith said, just before kissing him full on the lips.  Shiro grinned into the kiss, heart leaping in his chest.  

“What the quiznak is going on?!”  Allura’s shout broke him out of the bliss and reminded him where they were.  “Get off of him at once!”

“No, Allura, it’s okay,” Shiro sat up, holding a hand up to stop her.  She had her bayard out and drawn back, laser-whip coiled and ready to strike.

“It absolutely is not!”  Allura said. “We came here to seek an alliance and he _attacked you_ out of _nowhere_!”  

“No, no, he didn’t.”  Shiro got to his feet and tried to disentangle himself from Keith’s grip, but Keith was hanging on like an ocelot digging its claws into prey.  Charmed as he was by Keith’s unwillingness to be separated, this was really not the time.

“You have exactly ten ticks to explain why your subordinate is attacking my paladin!”  Allura rounded on Kolivan sharply.

“Believe me, he is not easy to contain.”  Kolivan remarked dryly before turning to Keith.  “Your behavior is uncalled for and has jeopardized our meeting.  Return to your post at once. We will discuss this later, but for now, you will explain your actions to the princess.”  

“Shiro is my soulmate.”  Keith told him. “He’s the one I planned to help escape the command ship, the one I had to have Ulaz finish my plans with.  I haven’t seen him in nearly a _year_.  Sorry for being excited to see him.”  

Shiro beamed at him, but Kolivan crossed his arms up on the dias.  “You do not sound very apologetic.”

“I’m not.”  Keith replied icily, arms tightening around Shiro.  

“Keith…” Shiro touched his arm gently, hoping it would calm him.  

“Shiro, would you please explain what’s going on here?”  Allura asked, sounding frustrated.

“It’s exactly as he said.  Keith is my soulmate.” Shiro said.  “He wasn’t attacking me, I promise.”

“I could never attack Shiro.”  Keith told her, ears flattening against his hair at the thought.  “It’s because of me he’s alive and made it to Earth to find your Blue Lion, you know.”  

Allura’s cheeks colored and she frowned at his bluntness, but she lowered her bayard after a few moments of consideration.  “Fine. We may continue the meeting, but if you even _look_ like you are attacking him, me, or anyone else, I will not hesitate to fight you.”  

“Likewise.”  Keith said. Shiro dropped his head onto Keith’s shoulder and hid his smile in his hair.  Keith might act as fierce as a lion, but Shiro couldn’t see him as anything other than an adorable cat; teeth and claws, yes, but willing to bare a soft underside to the right people.

After the initial rocky start to the meeting, it went smoother after that.  Introductions were redone -- more cordially this time -- and Kolivan removed his mask before inviting them further into the base.  “Keith’s trust is not so easily won. That your paladin has it to this extent is remarkable, and lays credit to his character. Any friend of Keith’s is a friend of the Blade.”  Kolivan told Allura as he led them down the twisting corridors of the base. Shiro and Keith walked a few steps behind them, fingers twined together between them.

Shiro could not believe his luck.  He had feared, for a long time, that he would never see Keith again.  It had seemed impossible; Keith had been transferred to the furthest reaches of the Galra Empire, and Shiro had landed himself embroiled in a war against the Galra, the very people Keith worked for.  Or, at least, he had thought; finding out Keith was a spy made so much sense, looking back on it. The secrecy with which he used his communicator, his unwillingness to talk about where he came from, his vague allusions to his “work”, and his thinly-veiled and sometimes transparent hatred of the Empire… it all made a lot of sense, in retrospect.  

And damn, that skin-tight Marmora armor really suited him, Shiro thought.

While Allura and Kolivan were immersed in conversation ahead of them, Keith cast a furtive glance around before pushing Shiro behind a large black pillar and pressing up on his toes to kiss him again.  Before Shiro could really melt into it, though, Kolivan’s sharp voice barked out “Keith!” and Keith’s ears flicked back at the noise.

Keith let out a discontent grumble and pulled away from Shiro, taking him by the hand again.  The Blade leader frowned at his subordinate, and even Allura looked unamused. “At least wait until after the negotiations are through.”  Kolivan told the younger Blade coldly, in a way that reminded Shiro oddly of a disappointed father scolding his son.

“Yes, sir.”  Shiro replied.  He might have been reunited with his soulmate again, but he knew he still had to be professional.  Keith looked less inclined, but he mumbled out his own affirmative as well.

~~~~~~~~

Solar flares were quickly becoming Shiro’s favorite astrophysical phenomenon, he decided.  It was the solar flares from the blue star that had obscured the path back to the castle-ship at the end of their meeting, thereby forcing them to stay on the base for at least another quintant.  Allura was less thrilled than Shiro with this setback, but even she acknowledged that breaks were needed to keep everyone running in this war. When the negotiations were finished, she called the castle-ship to notify them of their newfound alliance with the Blade of Marmora and their delay, then Kolivan offered to show her around the base and exchange intel the two groups had gathered.  His gaze then flicked over to Shiro and Keith as if to inquire whether he ought to offer Shiro a tour too, but Allura smiled and waved a hand at them. “Go on, you two should catch up. I’ll be fine on my own, Shiro, you’re dismissed.”

“Thank you, Princess,” Shiro said.  “And I’m sorry for any… unprofessionalism.”  It probably wasn’t prime diplomat behavior to hold hands under the negotiating table.  

Allura laughed musically.  “Don’t worry. Alteans do not have soulmates quite the same way as you humans do, but I can see that your affections run deep.  It must have been hard to be away for so long. Enjoy your time together now.”

“Thank you, Princess, Kolivan.”  Shiro inclined his head to both of them, Keith following suit, then the group parted ways, Kolivan escorting the princess to the training room while Keith tugged Shiro down another hallway full of doors, like a dormitory.  

“So, you’re a spy.”  Shiro said casually.

“Yeah,” Keith stopped at one of the doors and pressed his hand to the sensor beside it to unlock it.  “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. It was just too dangerous.”

“I understand.”  Shiro said. Had their places been reversed, he would have done everything in his power to keep Keith out of danger.  

When the door opened, Shiro followed Keith inside the room.  It looked far more lived-in than his room back on the command ship.  The bed-sheets and blanket looked fairly standard-issue for a military organization, but he had another blanket spread on top that was knit in shades of red and black, and there was a poster of Earth hanging above the bed.  Beside the desk was a bookshelf crammed full of books, with about as many titles in English as there were in Galran, and a number of moon rocks and little knick-knacks that looked like they had come from Earth via an Unilu swap market were perched on top of the shelves.  He could tell, instantly, that this was Keith’s personal space, somewhere he had grown up.

Keith tugged him over to the bed and pulled him down onto it.  Shiro met him by wrapping his arms around him in a hug, and he felt Keith’s breath tickle his neck as he let out a sigh and relaxed against him.  “It’s good to have you back.” Keith curled an arm around his waist.

“Good to be back.”  Shiro smiled down at him.  “I missed you.”

“Being so far from you was hard,” Keith hugged him tighter, burying his nose in Shiro’s neck.  “It was killing me, when you were away.” He said.

Shiro nodded, knowing exactly what he meant.  He had been glad to be free of the Galra and glad to get back to Earth, but every mile put between the two of them had only strengthened the ache in his heart.  He had almost been relieved to get back to outer space, because the ache lessened just a little bit with the knowledge that he was among the same stars Keith was, somewhere.  

They talked for a long time, like that, just stretched out on the bed enjoying each other’s company and warmth.  They peeled off their gloves and the bulkier sections of armor to be more comfortable as they relaxed. Keith told him about the hours he spent meticulously planning how to get Shiro out, and how Kolivan had accused him of letting his emotions get in the way of his mission but Keith hadn’t been about to let that stop him.  When Thace, another undercover Blade higher up at the central command, had reported that Zarkon suspected one of the lions of Voltron was hidden on Earth, though, Kolivan had stopped complaining, as he knew they needed _someone_ to go to Earth, anyway.  

“I wanted to tell you what was going on,” Keith said, his tail tapping against Shiro’s hip where it was curled around him.  “But I was worried that they would find out and torture you for it. It seemed the best way to keep you safe.”

“It’s alright.”  Shiro kissed his forehead, reaching up to scratch at the base of one of Keith’s ears.  Keith sighed and relaxed against his chest, a low purr building in his throat.

“Did Ulaz look out for you like I told him to?”  He asked.

Shiro thought about it.  “I never saw him before the day he helped me escape.  But someone occasionally brought food or medicine to the cell at night and left it there.  Not consistently enough for me to notice a pattern, but often enough. I didn’t know if it was the friend you had mentioned or if one of the other prisoners had an admirer guard.”  

“That was probably him.  He was sneaky.” Keith sighed.  “One time when I was a kit, I got an ear infection and refused to put the drops in my ears, and he managed to sneak into my room every night and put them in while I was asleep, without waking me up.  And you know I’m a light sleeper.” He frowned lightly in thought. “I still don’t know how he managed to get them in both sides…”

Shiro chuckled at the mental image of Ulaz tickling a tiny, sleeping Keith with big fluffy ears to get him to roll over, holding an ear-dropper bottle over him and frowning in concentration.  “I love you.” The words were out of him before he knew what he was saying, but he didn’t regret it.

Keith glanced up at him to lift one eyebrow questioningly.  “Where did that come from?”

Shiro shrugged.  “I just wanted to say it.  I haven’t gotten to for a while.”  

Keith stared at him for a moment, then laughed softly.  “You’re really something.” He took Shiro’s left hand and tangled their fingers together between their chests, thumb stroking along his skin.  Shiro hummed in appreciation and switched to scratching Keith’s other ear.

The two of them laid quietly for a few minutes, just enjoying the closeness.  Suddenly, Keith’s slow strokes paused and he went still. Shiro barely had time to look down before Keith was turning his hand to see his wrist, gaze riveted on the black letters there.  “You…”

“Oh, yeah,” Shiro rubbed the back of his head.  “I got a tattoo. I thought, since my soulmark got destroyed with my arm...”

Keith looked down, rubbing a thumb over the words.  “ _You’re from Earth, aren’t you?_ ”  He read quietly.  

“The first words you said to me.”  Shiro said. “Sorry they’re not the first words I heard you say.”  Honestly… he didn’t think he could bear getting the words ‘ _vrepit sa_ ’ tattooed on his skin, even if that was what his original soulmark had said.

“No, I like this better.”  Keith smiled. “It’s more personal.”

Shiro hummed in agreement.  “You still have yours?”

Keith tilted their joined hands to show his own wrist, the marks perhaps a little lighter and more natural on his skin than Shiro’s ink, but just as meaningful.  “ _I’m fine_.”  He read.

“Not my most romantic line.”  Shiro chuckled.

“No, but it’s the moment I started to fall in love with you.”  Keith said. “This defiant, strong human who refused to bend to the Empire.  And damn good-looking, too, once I stopped him from bleeding out his back.”

Shiro smiled fondly.  “If that’s when you started falling in love with me, when did you finish?  Further along than that?” He himself wasn’t even sure when he had fallen in love with Keith.  Surely, it had to have happened somewhere, between the kindness he showed him as a prisoner and the nights they spent together.  Really, it felt like he had just always been in love with Keith.

Keith shifted further up the bed to be level with Shiro’s face, close enough to feel his breath on his lips.  “I’ve never stopped.” He whispered it like it was a secret, but Shiro knew instantly that he felt the same.

He pulled Keith in closer for a long, slow kiss, glowing like the moon and the stars he had chased to get here.  “Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! Please let me know if you liked it. I have a [tumblr](http://gold-leeaf.tumblr.com) as well. And a big thank you to [Prosaicwonder](http://vava-fett.tumblr.com/post/177155402719/my-artwork-for-the-sheithbigbang-i-was-paired) and [Auxaribyrd](https://auxari.tumblr.com/post/177163164441/human-meets-his-alien-boyfriend-again-he-is-in) for their artwork, and to the mods of the Sheith Big Bang for setting up the event.


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